TranscriptJanetQuinneyLawson

Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
1
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee: Janet Quinney Lawson
Place of Interview: 2586 Maywood Drive, Salt Lake City, UT
Date of Interview: April 28, 2008
Interviewer: Brad Cole and Barbara Middleton
Recordist: Brad Cole
Recording Equipment: Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Transcription Equipment used: Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Transcribed by: Susan Gross
Transcript Proofed by: Brad Cole, February 2009; Randy Williams 25 February 2009
Brief Description of Contents: [Janet Quinney Lawson talks about her childhood memories at
her family’s summer home at Bear Lake. She also talks of her childhood memories at family
members’ homes in Cache Valley, Utah. She talks a lot about skiing and sailing on/at the
Wasatch Front, Utah and in Cache Valley and Bear Lake.]
Reference: For instance: BC = Brad Cole (Interviewer)
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer)
JL = Janet Quinney Lawson
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 2: A]
BM: [This is Barbara Middleton of the] Natural Resources at Utah State University. [I am] here with
Brad Cole. Cole [interviewer] is the Director of Special Collections at USU Libraries. And we are
here with Janet Quinney Lawson in her home at 2586 Maywood Drive, in Salt Lake City, on a
beautiful spring day. This is Monday, April 28th [2008] and it’s about 2-2:15 in the afternoon.
So Janet, if you would please say your full name and when and where you were born.
JL: My full name is Janet Quinney Lawson. And I was born here in 1922 at the LDS Hospital, as I
recall.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
2
BM: In Salt Lake City?
JL: Uh-huh. I guess I was born there.
BM: Can I ask you, just to start off would you be willing to share the earliest memories of your father?
JL: Yeah, I was kind of scared of him! He was not a child’s best friend or “daddy.” He was stern and
he lived and he made you kind of tow the mark. As I grew older I began to appreciate him. He
was a superman. I used to run the rivers with him.
BC: What was his name?
JL: My father?
BC: Yes.
JL: S. J. Quinney. Seymour Joseph Quinney.
BM: And running rivers – what kind of rivers are we talking about?
JL: Oh! Colorado and Hell’s Canyon and all the rivers of the west. We used to run them in row boats.
It was great fun, I loved it. And we would do that and pull out wherever we pulled out. I know I
went down the river when I was – gosh, I guess six months or more pregnant with Peter (my
youngest son). But I didn’t tell Dad and I wore, you know a blouse that hung out. And he didn’t
even [know]. He wondered, I think he said, on occasions. But boy when I told him driving out of
Preston, poor father! It was a real blow! Now he wanted to know if Fred knew, and I said, “Well
of course.” “Did your mother know?” and I said, “Yes.” “Did she approve?” I said, “Sure she did,
she thought I was alright to do that.” And I loved it! It was great fun and I didn’t have any
problem. We went down Hell’s Canyon and came out at Preston maybe?
BC: Maybe Lewiston area?
JL: Yeah! Way up there –
BC: Right.
JL: On the Oregon – yeah we pulled out there and then we drove home. We brought a car the bank
had repossessed up in Preston I guess, or some place for Aunt Eve who was Bammie Eccles’
sister and never had any children and so she adopted all of Bammie’s children and all of her
grandchildren. And we were very close and she used to stay at our house. Her husband was an
engineer on the railroad and so he was out of town a lot. And she used to come up and stay with
Bammie in Logan. Then she would come back here and she would come up to the house. She
lived out on the west side way out by Wasatch High School and then she’d come in and up to the
house and stay. And it was great fun, she was a lovely person. She finally devoted a lot of her
time to Bammie up in Logan – she wasn’t really sick but anyway, she was getting old (in those
days). They were half sisters – same father, different mothers. So that’s what we did.
BM: So speaking of mothers, what is your earliest memory of your mom?
JL: My word! [Speaking to herself] Earliest memory [of] mom.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
3
I don’t know! I guess running a pretty tight ship when I was little and not even in school yet. But
I had a friend – a life-long friend that lived across the street: Kay Henderson. She was my dear
friend. We used to go to school together. She’d go with us. She came from a rather upbeat,
youngest Dr. Dave’s family who was an eye, ear, nose and throat [doctor] in Salt Lake. Kay and I
– well we just plain grew up together. She didn’t have quite as athletic of a background. She did
fine, but she came from a family of kind of a bunch of kids and they couldn’t spend the money
for ski clothing and so on. We remained friends all through our lives. She died three years ago in
Cape Cod. It was a good, long-standing relationship I must say.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: And it was fun to go over there because it was a big family. And I had only my brother Dave who
couldn’t be bothered much with me which was fine. But growing up in the neighborhood but it
was fun.
BM: Was she someone that went with you when you traveled to Bear Lake or Logan?
JL: Kay?
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Oh yeah! She went to Bear Lake. Every year she would come up and go with us. They were sort
of, you know, more religious. Her mother didn’t like her to miss church, but she did. My mother
would talk her into it and say that she could go to church at Bear Lake. I don’t remember if she
ever did or not. Maybe we did a few times. I can’t remember really. That wasn’t one of my great
points in growing up.
BM: Would you tell us a little bit about some of your early memories of Bear Lake and traveling over
there?
JL: Oh. Wow. First thing that happened was that we had a seven passenger Buick. Now that’s a pretty
big car and it had little jumpseats. But we always had our dog, Tip, and I had the cat, Tawny, and
three kittens usually. And we would pile into the car and we’d chug along and go up to Logan.
And then we’d spend the night at Bammie’s house—Bammie Eccles’ not Bammie Quinney’s—
but Bammie Eccles’. Then we��d get up the next morning and mother would drive us [o]n that
old, broken down road that was a one-way road really, you know. People just didn’t go up to Bear
Lake that way except people in Logan maybe, but we did! We’d go up there and haul in.
That time we stayed up in Idaho – my first recollection of staying at Bear Lake was in Idaho.
Mother rented the Gray house. Mr. Gray was the First Security Bank’s president in Montpelier,
Idaho. Yeah, that’s how it was. He was there and we rented this house because by now they’d
fallen upon hard times, then they went through a depression. The bank went bust, or whatever. It
was kind of tough. But anyway, we rented that house for quite a few years. Then mother went out
buzzing around one day and the next thing she did was come home and say, “I bought a house.”
So down at Ideal Beach was a house that was owned by a Mr. Boyer who was a very successful (I
don’t know what he was!) man – businessman. That went kind of belly-up and he had to sell the
house. And here was this house that was completely furnished, lock, stock and barrel–silver and
china and bedding and more bedding. And then Dad bought the lot, finally he talked Sister Boyer
(maybe; Sister somebody) – and he sweet-talked her. On part of that lot there was a lumber mill.
And they’d cut the logs which was fine except all the sawdust they pushed into the lake. Well that
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
4
doesn’t deteriorate really. So we had many years where every time we’d go down everybody
would take a bucket of some sort. And we’d haul out the logging –
BM: Sawdust?
JL: Yeah. Well finally we got rid of it I guess. Of course that was many a year ago. Mother came
home and Dad nearly had a fit! But what she got that house for was—lock, stock and barrel. I
think it was something like $800. It was just ridiculous! And it was the house we had. Dad,
finally when Mother told him and he went to see what was going on, he knew the piece of
[land?]. I don’t know what he did. A lawyer did that as a “Thank you very much people.” And so
he was in good standing with the locals.
They just got out and they cut that house in three parts and they moved it! And it wasn’t out that
much. It was just amazing! I remember when they did it and I remember Mother went up to Bear
Lake. And that fireplace of course was stone from across the lake. It was a big hole because they
had to knock it down when they moved the house. So all Mother could see was this hole and oh
she went into great sobs of mourning that the house would never be the same. Well of course it is
the same and much better, and added on to, to some degree. We added on—we changed the
kitchen quite a bit and added another bedroom and bath back there because Mother always had
somebody to go to help. That extended the kitchen on out further and behind the kitchen was
another bedroom.
BM: Um-hmm. Now Ideal Beach is – when I look at this map – Ideal Beach is south of the Junction
coming over to Garden City, but you were saying you were north to start off with?
JL: Oh no, no, no. Here we are. Let’s see. [Looking at a map]
BM: Here’s Ideal.
JL: Here’s Ideal. We’re down there to – what does that say?
BM: That says Ideal Beach, Sweet Water Marina. So they’re just showing –
JL: There, yeah well here’s –
BM: That’s the Highway rest stop down there. So right around Rendezvous Beach State Park, which is
very historic.
JL: Yeah. We moved it down about 2 miles that way and about one mile from Garden City.
BM: My goodness! And you literally picked up the house and moved it?
JL: Yeah, it was just crazy what they did!
BC: About what year was that, do you remember?
JL: Well I can think, but wait a minute. Let’s see – I think I was 16 maybe; 15 or 16. Yeah, so how
old would that make me? Since I’m 86.
BC: So it would have been about 1937.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
5
JL: Yeah, something.
BC: You said you spent a few years in Montpelier? Would that have been in the early 1930s? When
you lived in Montpelier and rented Mr. Gray’s house?
JL: No, that was in Fish Haven!
BC: Fish Haven?
JL: Down on the lake. That was their summer home!
BC: Oh, okay. So he lived in Montpelier, but also had a house [on the lake] – okay.
JL: Yeah they lived in Montpelier – Banker Gray – and had a beautiful home there. And there was
Grove and Fred. Fred was the oldest son, then they had Grove and then they had a sister. What
was her name? She was a cripple; she was born with faulty legs or something, I don’t remember
what. She was a lovely person but she was certainly incapacitated. Times were hard. They opened
up this fox farm in Fish Haven—Grove and Fred. Fred first and then he went off and went into
business and then Grove took it over. And they raised these [foxes], they were a big thing in
those days I guess.
BM: And they were fox they were raising?
JL: Yeah, they were foxes.
BM: And what were they raising them for?
JL: For the fur.
BM: Okay. How interesting.
JL: Yeah, they really would. Fur coats; not really coats so much, it would take too many foxes. Oh, I
remember. I never went down there though when they were slaughtering the foxes. That was not
my cup of tea. Nor go out – yeah I did. I went out with them when they would go buy an old
horse that was tired and slaughter it to feed the foxes. And of course you had to be down there
every day. They had to eat. It was fun, I liked it. It’s nothing anybody else would like, but I did.
Getting all bloody! Mother used to just shake her head and say, “My goodness, what have I got
here?” See I was a little, bitty kid. I wasn’t very big at all. I mean structurally I was very small,
but boy I was a terror I guess! Poor thing.
BM: Now did you go over there winter as well as summer?
JL: Huh-uh. No, never did.
BM: So mostly summer?
JL: Yeah. What we usually did was plan to go up there on, well around the 4th of July and then we���d
close it up to some degree and get somebody to come in and drain the water; which we still do.
But things are changing up there; very definitely changing. And I can envision–we’re not
building anymore house. Rick was talking, I know, about building on to the bedroom wing and
putting in another few bedrooms and a bath. I think we kind of decided that wasn’t a good plan.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
6
Anyway, I don’t think it’s happening, and it’s not my problem. I’m not going to be here to run
that.
BM: So when you say, “things are changing up there,” what do you mean? What kinds of things did
you see change?
JL: Oh! Oh the building is simply incredible that’s going on. And across the street and on up Hodge’s
Canyon it’s all subdivided and people are building houses up on the hillside. And then they come
down and go probably over to Ideal Beach, Bluewater Beach and go on to swim or put their boats
in or whatever they have.
BM: Was that something that you did when you were a child, boating?
JL: Yeah. Dad had the only sailboat on the lake I guess, for years. And then we also had an outboard
motor boat and then we got – well, let’s see. What have we got up there now? Peter has a Hobie
Cat up there. (Peter is my youngest son.) And he has this Hobie Cat and he also has – yeah I think
he’s got a motor boat too.
BM: So sailing was something that you learned from your father?
JL: What?
BM: Sailing was something you learned from your father?
JL: Yeah.
BM: Did your mother also sail?
JL: No, she didn’t. That wasn’t her cup of [tea]– she’d go out there sometimes with Dad. They’d go
out alone and just sail. Dad would sail very quietly, not too far out from the shore. But, yeah she
went out boating. She went out boating – I had a boat too. That was a power boat. You know that
lake isn’t constant. It varies – they pumped it out for irrigation upstream. Well, they don’t want it
anymore upstream. Anyway, last year they pumped because the pumps would run out of – there
was no water for them. And now they’re going to let that go back. They’ve sold it to, I don’t
remember the name of the people they sold it to, but they are not interested in alfalfa which is
what they used the water for.
[Looking out the window] Oh, whoa. Looking out there at the sky, can you see?
BM: Oh yeah; leaving a jet trail.
JL: You see that? Yeah. Big old thing going across.
Dad had a lot of foresight; however people don’t know and we don’t tell them that we have as
much land as we have. But we’re well-protected on the north side and the south side of our
property. And it of course goes to the children and I guess they like it. I think they’ll use it.
[Speaking to somebody else] Who’s that?
BM: Sounds like somebody is talking on the phone.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
7
JL: Maybe.
And I don’t know, I just had some rare old times and fun times up there; very happy memories. It
[Bear Lake property] has this great, big screened-in porch that goes all around half the house and
the dining room table is outside. And there is a couch out there and Grandfather Eccles’ rocking
chair, old leather rocking chair. It just has lots of memories. We have a book that we keep and
people write in it.
BM: Like the visitors that come?
JL: Yeah, yeah. And it’s nice and it’s fun. And it’s fun to look back and it’s fun to look and see when
I decided I better go home is when I was going to have that baby. And I did.
BM: [Laughing] Now which child was that then?
JL: It was Peter.
BM: Peter? Okay.
JL: Yeah. See, he’s 10 years younger. He was really an after-thought. He wasn’t a happenstance – he
was planned on and conceived. And he went down Hell’s Canyon with me unborn. I didn’t tell
Mother about it. I told Dad about it on the way home. And he said, “Does your mother know?”
And I said, “Yeah.” He said, “I thought you were looking a little dumpy.” Yeah, that was May
and Peter was born in August. Yeah, I was well along. I didn’t care, that was fun. I skied and I did
everything!
BM: Could you tell us a little bit about your skiing?
JL: Well –
BM: Where did you start?
JL: There is Ecker Hill up Parley’s Canyon; Dave and Dad got involved in that through the jumping.
Dad got interested in judging and got interested in the Norwegian people and he judged all the
time up there, ski-jumping. And that is how Dave got going. I didn’t ever go off Ecker Hill—I
was too little. I went off Rasmussen’s Hill which was down the way. But heavens! I didn’t even
have bindings then. I think we took inner tubes and cut them and put them around the toe and
around the outside of the toe and around the back. Those were our bindings. That was many a
year ago!
BM: That was inner tubing on wood?
JL: Well the inner tubing I used for bindings –
BM: Oh!
JL: They were like the old wood skis with a toe strap. That was it. And then you got a hold of that
and then you got a hold of the inner tube and cut a piece about that thick and put it over your toe
and over the toe of your boot and back over your hill and off you went on Rasmussen’s Jump.
And it was a scaffold that was built and came down and landed on the hill and ran out. Oh, it was
fun!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
8
BM: How did you get up to the top?
JL: Climbed.
BM: On snowshoes, or boots?
JL: No, no. We just climbed on our feet on the little hill I jumped. But the boys, the big jumpers – Al
Bangerter and his tribe and us – they just put their skis over their shoulder and walked up to the
top.
BM: Hmm.
JL: Boy am I thirsty. Do you want some water or something?
BM: Actually, I’m fine.
BC: I’m fine right now.
JL: Are you? Alright.
BM: So those are the days before ski lifts and riding on top of the mountain.
JL: Dad did the first lift in Alta – Collins lift – he did that. I mean when I say he did it – he got 10
business friends of his to each put in x number of dollars (which I don’t know). Ecker Hill was
there, but it was pretty rough and I think they used it, but not for tournaments and things. But he
did. They built that and set it up. Now how does that work? I was thinking that it was the biggest
ski jump in North America. Whether it was there or whether it was – I don’t know – in the
Northwest. I don’t know. I would have to research that and look it up. But there wasn’t an awful
lot of ski jumping even.
But then I got my first pair of skis. I was little – I didn’t grow very much.
[Tape 1 of 2: B]
JL: Celeste can get you something. These caregivers I have are just wonderful.
BM: Oh, I bet. It’s nice to have people here.
JL: Yeah. Well I didn’t have them here except during the day, but then I fell a year ago in Moab and
cracked it!
BM: So now you have someone with you day and night.
JL: I have somebody, yeah. I have two of them that are here day and night.
BM: That’s great.
JL: Yeah it is! I like it and they seem to like it, so.
BM: So let’s go back to something you were saying. I am trying to picture the trip when you were a
young girl from, not just Salt Lake to Logan, but Logan over –
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
9
JL: To Bear Lake?
BM: -- to Bear Lake. I’m trying to picture that road.
JL: Well at first it was even just a dirt road. Mother in the seven passenger car and the cat and the dog
and a couple of kittens and Dave and I was there and BM was there I guess (or some household
help). And we’d go to Logan and stay overnight at Bammie’s house – Grandmother Eccles’ house
– and go chuckety, chuckety, chuck the next day. And sometimes your old car would heat up and
you would have to sit there and wait for it to cool down so you could go on [laughing]. But we
always stopped at Rick Springs.
BM: Oh, sure!
JL: That was very different then than it is now. Because, I don’t know what they’ve done but you
can’t even hardly see it without getting out and walking! Well, I mean it wasn’t that way in those
days.
BM: So you got there and you parked your car, and what did you do at Ricks Springs?
JL: Oh, we’d have a drink or have a sandwich or have some water. It was just halfway and it was
good and it was fun and it was nice. And we always did that. Now I flew past – well I haven’t
been up through Logan Canyon because it’s been all under construction and a mess. And then
going in Roy into Ogden – that highway is just one big, bloody mess and I haven’t gone there. I
don’t when that’s ever going to get done. And I don’t know when they’re going to quit
monkeying with that road up the canyon.
BM: Well they just did some bridge improvements, and that was quite –
JL: Oh yeah.
BM: -- quite a bit as far as stopping traffic one-way, and.
JL: Yeah, because that one bridge goes over a great, big –
BM: Oh, that’s the large one on the curve?
JL: Yeah.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: And I don’t know. I haven’t been up Logan Canyon—I don’t remember if I even went up last
year because I just get on and zoom up here to Evanston and then-
BM: So that’s your new route?
JL: Yeah.
BM: Over 80 to Evanston and then up?
JL: Um-hmm.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
10
BM: Um-hmm. Now when you went through the earlier part when you went through Logan Canyon,
did you ever go to some of the places like Ephraim’s Grave (the big bear), or ?
JL: Uh-huh. And they had, what an MIA Home or something?
BM: What is that?
JL: Up at the first dam or something?
BM: Oh!
JL: No, second dam I guess. And we used to cross the bridge and go up there and there was – I don’t
know, and MIA. Maybe it wasn’t, maybe it was something else. I don’t know.
BM: Hmm.
JL: But anyway it was a camp and the kids used to go up there for, you know, camping out – like Girl
Scouts, only they were something else in those days.
BC: So when you say, “MIA,” do you mean Mutual Improvement Association?
JL: Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. [Mostly likely talking about Camp Lomia, past 3rd Dam a few miles.]
BM: So was that possibly the Scout Camp at St. Anne’s?
BC: Might be, I’m not sure.
JL: What?
BM: Was it St. Anne’s?
JL: What ?
BM: The camp you’re talking about?
JL: I don’t know.
BM: Hmm. It was on the right hand side as you go up the canyon?
JL: You went over the dam there, which they used, and the water that came out of there they dammed
it up. So, I don’t know what it was called. And besides it’s all different now. Utah State has that
big forestry place up there too.
BM: Um-hmm. Have you been there?
JL: Yeah. That’s Mr. Dad’s. I said, “Now you quit that!” He said, “Wouldn’t you rather have me
interested in it than somebody else?” I said, “Yes I would.”
BM: So this is the forestry camp?
JL: Uh-huh.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
11
BM: That’s on the right-hand side as you go up.
JL: Um-hmm.
BM: And was the – let’s see was it 1938 was the first summer camp up there? 1936? Somewhere in
that time?
JL: Um-hmm.
BM: And so what is your dad have to do with that?
JL: Well, he gave them the money to start the training camp up there.
BM: Oh, okay.
JL: And bring the animals and so on.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: So that’s what he did.
BM: It is a very important place for a lot of the foresters to get their start.
JL: Oh I think so.
BM: Yeah.
JL: A lot of foresters. Um-hmm.
BM: Also fire. As far as training young men to help with forest fires.
JL: Now, that I didn’t know. But that’s interesting. It’s a good place, should be.
BM: Yeah.
JL: I don’t know why I don’t. I think they have one cabin up there that they save for Dad and Mother
or for me or somebody to go up and stay overnight. I think I told somebody; who would I have
told –
BM: Was it Thad maybe?
JL: Uh-huh, probably Thad.
BM: So you have gone up and camped up at the Forestry Camp?
JL: Yeah!
BM: Oh, alright. Because there is one building that is the older building.
JL: Yeah!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
12
BM: With all the pictures in it and the stove –
JL: Right, right.
BM: Okay.
JL: What’s that called?
BM: Well that is the old Forestry Camp CCC building.
JL: Oh yeah.
BM: And it’s the oldest building –
JL: There.
BM: It’s one of the oldest buildings there. And then there’s a larger dorm, which sleeps about 30
people.
JL: There?
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Yeah, that’s right. I do remember that.
BM: Do you also remember – you know, part of that camp burned.
JL: Oh, it certainly did! I had forgotten that. It really burned.
BM: The kitchen – the lodge.
JL: Oh, that was – they had to rebuild it totally didn’t they?
BM: We haven’t rebuilt it yet.
JL: Oh, I thought we had.
BM: No, not yet. We’re looking, we’re hoping. We’re hoping. But right now it’s an open area; there’s
a small trailer that was there that serviced some of the work, but nothing like the beautiful lodge
that you must remember.
JL: Yeah, although it was –
BM: The dining hall –
JL: Yeah. It was kind of little, as I recall.
BM: Was it?
JL: Yeah, it wasn’t like – in comparison to maybe the Girl Scout camp down here or –
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
13
BM: Camp Cloud Rim?
JL: Rim.
BM: Right, right.
JL: Camp Cloud Rim.
BM: Which was also a CCC building.
JL: Well I guess those lakes [cabins?] were owned by people, you know. They weren’t just sitting
there. I’m trying to think who – John Wallace; the Wallace family had up there. And the Brimhall
family; and I don’t know. Of course they gave it over to the Girl Scouts and now they use it and
have added onto it even since I was there.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: For the dedication of the building or whatever.
BM: And that was back in the late 1990s.
JL: I guess, yeah.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: I guess it was.
BM: Yeah.
JL: Did they name it for me or something?
BM: They did! Your name is on that building. [The Janet Quinney Lawson camp?]
JL: I just live in horror.
[Laughing]
JL: I say, “I’m giving you the money and you’re to go ahead, but don’t be putting my name.” There it
was.
BM: [Laughing] It’s on a building on campus too, up at Utah State.
JL: Yes it was! What was it – oh that little Quonset hut. Yeah! That’s a great place.
BM: That’s a great building though.
JL: Oh, it is! I’ve been there when little kids have been there. One of them really attached himself to
me. Poor little things.
BM: Was that the Adaptive Technology part where they’re in the basement there?
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
14
JL: Yeah.
BM: Is there a lot of children in that program?
JL: Yeah that are learning to speak or walk, or – yeah, they’re physically limited.
BM: Right.
JL: But it’s a great thing that they can do what they’re doing in that Quonset hut.
BM: Um-hmm. And they help a lot of children get around.
JL: Oh, I know. I just know they do. And that cute thing out in front of the Edith Bowen – is it the
Edith Bowen and Emma Eccles Jones, are they here?
BM: They are. Emma Eccles Jones Building is the education building and then Edith Bowen is the lab
school, which is right next door.
JL: Yeah. Is it west or is it –?
BM: Edith Bowen is east –
JL: Yeah, it’s east –
BM: And then there is a sculpture –
JL: Yeah, that’s a Van Dam
BM: Right, right. With the two children and then the –
JL: Yeah, then, uh-huh. And then Aunt Em’s building.
BM: Right.
JL: Dad’s building is there too; Dad and Mother’s.
BM: Well that would be the College of Natural Resources building.
JL: That’s right.
BM: Right, right. And that’s right behind, that’s right to the south –
JL: South.
BM: Of your Quonset hut, that you call it.
JL: That’s right. Well, that’s what it is!
BM: It is! And you know there are still folks that come on campus that say, “I remember when that
was a Quonset hut.” And it kind of still looks like a Quonset hut!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
15
JL: I think it does. Yeah, I do.
BM: It has the remote sensing lab in it now. Where they do a lot of the geographic maps.
JL: Oh there?
BM: Um-hmm. There are several entities in that building.
JL: Besides the little kids?
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Oh. Well I just know that those little children – it’s wonderful when they can finally get them out.
They’re kind of timid about everything of course, because they’ve been so protected. But, what a
break for the parents and the children themselves to be able to get out.
BM: And it’s also a great training center for the students.
JL: Terrific! Just marvelous!
BM: There are a lot of classes that go through there.
JL: Well there’s kind of a lot of Eccles/Quinney stuff up there somehow.
BM: There sure is! Now speaking of USU and getting back to Bear Lake – if you’re down near Ideal
Beach, aren’t you also close to the USU –
JL: Yes! That Dad built?
BM: Oh!
JL: I think Dad built that – gave them the money to build it. Yeah, it’s just down, maybe, oh, maybe
three-quarters of a mile on the road.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: But you can walk it. Of course now let’s hope that they’ll be good enough to – can’t I get you
anything? I feel so –
BM: No, I’m fine.
JL: I feel terrible. [Ms Lawson is concerned for her guest’s needs.]
BC: Oh, we’re fine.
BM: When you were there, you talked about sailing and you talked about swimming. Were there also
holidays, like Raspberry Days?
JL: Oh yes! And I remember when the raspberries weren’t [growing] because they got diseased! A
few years ago actually, that was. Oh yes, indeed!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
16
BM: Hmm. So what did you do for Raspberry Days?
JL: Bought them and ate them.
[Laughing]
BC: Well did they have – when you were a little girl, did they have raspberries then? Or did that came
later?
JL: No, I think that came later. I think that was started by the Hodges family and their boys. And they
planted those and then psh! I don’t know what happened. They got a disease though, and it really
– it was something they couldn’t spray and kill and have it alright. It imbedded itself and would
appear on the next year if you planted them. So, I don’t know. And now – I don’t know what
they’re doing now. They’re behind that – what’s that called? That new place by the marina, only
on the other side of the road?
BM: Oh that large development?
JL: Yeah. And then on up and up and up and up. Yeah. And that’s all being subdivided. And honestly
I think Bear Lake is seeing the best of times. It’s – I’m concerned. I think it’s just going to
develop and develop and more and more and more. And people are able to get there and they’re
building houses . I don’t know, Well, I’ve got enough space that I don’t need to worry too much
about it.
BM: When you were over there before the development, do you remember cattle or sheep, or – with
those hills where the homes are going – what was that landscape like?
JL: Yeah. They ran cattle up Hodges Canyon.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: They could run cattle up there. And they did and I don’t know whether they still can or just don’t
do it because nobody’s interested in doing that kind of thing. All those people died; faded away.
Although Rula is here and Dolly is here. And Dolly has died and Rula – Dad bought the piece
that goes in front of Rula’s house is on that side. And she – what did they do? They finally got her
to go over to Logan to live in a place, a house, a rest home or something in the winter. Because
they said they wouldn’t leave her up there in the winter anymore, she couldn’t navigate. So I
don’t know. I may see her, I hope so. I’ll have to find out.
BM: And who is Rula?
JL: Well, she’s a neighbor on the east side. And they have a house. And Tom used to help Dad all the
time with the planting of the garden vegetables and so on. And mowing and one thing or another.
Well, he died and so it was Rula’s. And so she sold us this section that was theirs, adjacent to our
north boundary. It’s a south boundary and it’s a lot. And there’s nothing there except, oh beautiful
roses.
BM: Hmm.
JL: I don’t know, I think one day maybe one of the kids will build something there. I’ve got a few of
them hanging around that are entitled to do what they want to do.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
17
BM: Okay, so who’s the other person you were talking about? Dolly was another neighbor?
JL: Yeah and she was on the other side of Joel.
BM: Okay.
JL: And they just loved him. Oh they just did. And they just used to open our house and clean it and
so on. Of course those days have gone. Dolly died a couple of years ago I guess. I believe she
was a year older than I am. Maybe two. And Rula is a year younger. I think she had about 12 –
Grandma Hodges. And oh, did she like Joel! He could just wiggle her out of anything.
[Laughing]
JL: And then he would do a lot, you know, and they had legal problems. Dad would help them out.
And he was very kind. And they all knew it and all loved him for it and it was beneficial to us.
Because see we own – well, God I don’t know how many front feet. I don’t tell them that because
they don’t tax us. It’s undeveloped.
BC: Yeah.
BM: Sure.
JL: But Dad’s never paid taxes. It’s called wetland. And actually it is. It goes down toward the USU
building. There are a couple of houses and then the building is there.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: And it goes down there.
BC: When you’d go up there in the summer as a young child, did your dad stay up with you for the
whole summer or did he come back to Salt Lake?
JL: Oh, he’d come back, you know.
BC: Uh-huh.
JL: I think he just felt that he had to get back home. And he’d – sometimes he would stay up an extra
day or two, but he didn’t stay up like Mother did. But Mother would pack us up and go in. Of
course we had Mr. Coddle then and the store and that was fine. But that’s no longer. It’s all so
changed.
BC: And would you spend any time up in the mountains hiking, riding horses or anything like that?
JL: Huh-uh. No, nope. I just did it on the lake. And I rode horses on the lake.
BM: Huh. Now who had the horses?
JL: Oh, somebody local. Yeah. I’d say hey, one of the Hodges I suppose. Yeah, even had my little
kids which weren’t so little anymore – although maybe he died. They tore – I’m so mad at them,
you know? Up there across the street from my place there was that old house and then that little
log cabin that was the original old house. And when they bought that land they ripped it all down!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
18
And that was a terrible thing to have done! I mean that was kind of a historical, little, old log
cabin!
BM: Did you know the people that lived there?
JL: Yeah, I did. He was interested in nothing but the money. Ron Hansen was his name. But I don’t
know. Things will change, there’s no question about it. Gosh! I look up there to see Dad and was
sitting down on the porch that we added on outside, off the dining room – the screened in porch.
And it was right after he went up there after he had surgery.
BM: Hmm. So it was a place he went to recuperate and rest?
JL: Uh-huh. He loved it! He just loved it. And of course anything he did was for improvement. Now
if that lake will get back up, I will be ever so grateful. And it may. Because the people who
bought it from Scottish Power they can’t pump it anymore. They used to pump it and pump it
upstream (or downstream, whatever you want) on up into Idaho, to give the farmers more, oh
what do I want?
BC: For irrigation water.
JL: Yeah, for other chokecherry bushes.
BM: Oh.
JL: And they don’t do that anymore. They haven’t run the way -- . Yeah, they used to – they’d sell
the chokecherries all the time. In Garden City you’d go to the stand and buy chokecherries.
BM: Huh.
JL: Take them home and put them in a pot and boil them up – ooh! Good!
BM: And ate them as what? As a sauce, or [unclear]
JL: No. Then you strain it and take it and thicken it as a chokecherry jelly or –
BM: Sounds like one of your favorites!
JL: Oh yeah! Gee it was good!
BM: Huh. And so you put it on toast, or?
JL: Yes! Anything you’d put jam on! It was just delicious. And those days are gone! They just are. I
looked out – going up toward Logan out of Garden City – here all this is subdivided down to that
place, that new –
BM: That new development down there.
JL: Yeah, whatever that is. And I may not live to see it, but then I may live to see some, but I guess
it’s just going like crazy.
BC: It is.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
19
JL: Is it?
BC: Yeah, I think it’s –
JL: People are buying it and building and so on.
BM: And it’s a beautiful place.
JL: Oh! Of course it is. It’s just lovely. And down to the boat marina.
BM: Do you remember the refuge? The wildlife refuge on the north end of the lake? Was that there, or
was that yet to be established? When you go past the boat marina and the state park, and you
continue north –
JL: Yes.
BM: Towards Montpelier, around the north end is now a National Wildlife Refuge.
JL: It is?!
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Well, I don’t know. I’ve driven around the lake and I know people that live there.
BM: I’m trying to think of the year when that was established. Because I think you would have been
over there.
JL: Oh, I know doubt would have!
BM: It’s waterfowl and swans.
JL: It’s beautiful! It’s more at the north end than the south end. Yeah. Yeah, I know where you mean.
BM: Because part of the refuge – I’m wondering if you ever swam at this beach on the north end of the
lake called – North Beach State Park? Is that it?
JL: What is it called?
BM: The very north end of the beach – by the pump houses.
JL: Yeah, by the pump house.
BM: That’s a very popular swimming place.
JL: Well it is for the people that are up in Montpelier and Paris and St. Charles and so on, but there
are no – there are some hot springs over there too.
BM: That’s right.
JL: Yeah and they’ve been there forever because I was a little kid and Mother used to take us to swim
in it!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
20
BM: At the hot springs?
JL: Yeah!
BM: Oh, really?
JL: So it’s really been there forever.
BC: Oh.
BM: That’s a very famous hot springs place. There was a hotel there.
JL: Yeah. I don’t think – yes, I guess there, but that was really in the 1800s wasn’t it?
BM: Yes, the late 1800s and 1900s.
JL: Yeah, I know. But Mom used to take us up there. She didn’t like us to go swimming too much
because she didn’t think it was very clean.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Yeah, I don’t suppose it was. And anyway I don’t know whether there is still swimming in there
or not.
BM: There are still hot springs back there in that area but the building is gone.
JL: But the building is gone, so nobody really swims?
BM: I think only locals who really know it’s there.
JL: Oh.
BM: But that is more off the north east corner of the lake.
JL: That’s right.
BM: Back towards the Bear River and the mountains then, close to Wyoming?
JL: Yeah.
BM: My goodness. You really got around! Holy cow.
JL: And the Nebeker Ranch, which was big and now the kids are running it again. I don’t, whose it
is? Is it Paul? See Dad was partners with all those gentleman. Paul, and –
BM: Um-hmm. Partners in the law firm, you’re saying?
JL: Uh-huh.
BM: Right.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
21
JL: They’re all gone, but their issue is there. And I don’t know who is over in their house. I know that
the gals and boys – or boy and gal – that run the wonderful little stand that do those little donuts –
ummm. [Licking her lips]
[Laughing]
BM: Wait, what donuts are these?
JL: Uh, they just fry them right there. They are just little things like that. And oh boy! Are they good!
I want to go out and get them. And then they also – they had some, they showed it to me anyway,
chokecherry. But that is gone – that day and era. And you know, that’s kind of too bad.
BC: Yeah, it is.
JL: I feel sorry about that. I used to pick them.
[Tape 2 of 2: A]
BM: Tape 2, side 2[1].
JL: Yes.
BM: Here with Janet Quinney Lawson and we’re continuing with our Bear Lake stories.
So he still sails up there? Peter?
JL: Yes! And his kids; you know Peter’s kids are getting big! He married and he got these two – after
he was divorced from [?] and he remarried. And he has two little kids – three and five. And that’s
pretty little. They come up. They come up for a week or ten days and they just love it and we love
having them.
BM: Oh, I bet!
JL: And it’s the way it should be used.
BM: Now are they swimmers as well as sailors?
JL: Oh yes! Sure are. Is the Bear Lake monster for real?
BM: Ah! You remember the Bear Lake monster?
JL: Oh sure! [Laughing]
BM: Tell us about that.
JL: I don’t –
BM: I actually have that in my notes as one of the myths or legends about –
JL: Yeah, it is.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
22
BM: So what did you hear about it?
JL: It’s exactly it – that it would come out and you better mind your p’s and q’s or it would get you!
And it was usually at dusk or after.
BM: Uh-huh. What did it look like?
JL: I don’t know! It sort of was large and it sort of had a long neck that would recoil in I guess and
just its head would be there; or it would be out standing up. What’s he got here?
[Reading] Is the Bear Lake monster for real?
Did I give you one of these?
BM: No, that’s fine, you can keep that.
JL: Don’t you want one?
BM: Nope, that’s fine. You can keep that.
JL: I’ve got more.
BM: That’s okay. On the monster, have you told your new grandchildren about this? Peter’s children?
JL: Yeah, Peter’s. Uh-huh, two little fellows.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Um-hmm.
BM: So they know about the Bear Lake monster?
JL: Oh they do! And they’re sure they saw it. And as a matter of fact sometimes, you know, the 4th of
July or 24th some boats get together and make a Bear Lake monster out of it. Oh yeah, it’s fun.
BM: Well you know I also wondered if you fished there because there are fish in the lake.
JL: Yeah, but they’re trash fish usually, like the sucker. They’re no good eating, they’re nasty. Yeah
you can go and if you’re very patient and want to do it. The trout you just can’t catch, but
gradually I think it will restore itself.
BM: Um-hmm.
BC: What about your father? Did he fish at all?
JL: Oh yes! He was a great fisherman. Not really so much there, but yeah. But he fished there, sure.
But it just didn’t yield anything but carp and sucker. They were so stupid you could catch them in
a net.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
23
BM: Wow. When you talk about Bear Lake – that’s a summer place and you’re a skier so you’re
coming down here to the Salt Lake City front – where was Beaver Mountain with the
development of that ski resort when you were a young child?
JL: It wasn’t.
BM: It wasn’t there.
JL: No. That area was called Beaver Mountain. But I remember when it opened.
BM: You do?
JL: And I remember the people – I can’t tell you now, I just can’t – who opened it.
BM: Were those the Seeholzers?
JL: Yes, maybe.
BM: Okay.
JL: Maybe.
BM: And so, how old were you when that [Beaver] opened?
JL: I was probably 14 or 15 I think, because I raced up there.
BM: Oh you did!
JL: Yeah. And it wasn’t anything like it is now. I mean you have to go back up in, well that wasn’t
like that. It was, seems to me, you just go off the road and go on up.
BM: Um-hmm. Did it have a tow lift?
JL: Well, actually yeah it did, it had a tow. But it wasn’t developed really, [back] then it had a single
chair lift. I think it still does perhaps.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: I don’t know; I haven’t been up to it. I’m very naughty about that.
BM: It’s gotten pretty spiffy.
JL: I guess it really, really has and I guess it’s just wonderful skiing!
BM: Um-hmm. And the Seeholzer family still has the operation.
JL: The rights? They do? My word!
BM: And it’s grown. So you raced there as a child?
JL: Uh-huh.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
24
BM: Downhill ski racing.
JL: Uh-huh. And giant slalom, we did that there too. And we did slalom; yeah, we did all of them.
BM: Were they also jumping up there?
JL: Not really.
BM: No?
JL: No, the jumping was mostly down here, up at Ecker Hill. [Ecker Hill is in Wasatch County] I’ve
got some pictures that Peter [Lawson] has restored (and maybe some of them are up at the
University, I don’t know) of the jumping days with Alf and Sverre and Corey [Engen]. Now
they’re all gone. I think, to my knowledge though, Alf’s wife Evelyn is still alive. I’m not sure,
but I believe she is.
BM: This is Evelyn Engen?
JL: Uh-huh.
BM: I’m not sure. I don’t know the name. I know the name Alf.
JL: Uh-huh, he was the older brother of the three. There was Alf and then there’s Sverre and Corey.
And they all moved over here gradually. And then their parents moved over here. [Mrs. Engen
moved to Utah, but her husband was deceased.] And she was Alf’s wife (she’s a pain in the butt!
That’s not nice, but anyway she is.) She lives on an old farm. I think it’s an old farm. Maybe it’s
not, maybe it’s out on the – I don’t know. It’s out there in one of those condominium
developments.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: And I’ve seen her on occasions at some gatherings skiing, but I haven’t seen her since the last ski
archives up there.
BM: At the university?
JL: No. Up at the – what do they call it? That what I’m trying to think.
BC: The University of Utah Ski Archives?
JL: Yeah, that’s what it is. And that’s called something – I can’t think what it’s called. [The Alf
Engen Ski Museum in Park City.]
BM: Is it Ski Meister? Or is that a magazine?
JL: Maybe it is.
BM: Hmm. But they celebrate each year, and that’s what you’ve been back to? Hmm.
JL: I think Alf’s book, or Corey’s book – was it Corey or Alf or Sverre? Maybe Sverre’s book. Over
there, can you see it?
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
25
BC: Yeah. There’s one called First Tracks?
JL: Yeah, that’s the endurance.
BC: Yeah. Let’s see –
JL: He’s gone.
BC: The Wasatch Mountains –
JL: They’ve all died but me. And as my Dad said, “You’re too ornery.”
[Laughing]
BM: So you’ve skied with all of them?
JL: Yeah.
BM: That was part of your –
JL: bringing up.
BM: Gee.
JL: Oh yeah. I skied, as I say, when you put the inner tube around your boot and binding and that was
at Ecker Hill, that’s where we went. So of course it was open. Unless you skied, and we did later
on and I did too. You know, you would drive up Silver King Mine and hike up and over and drop
down into Brighton and stay at [?]; Mrs. Howardy would run that. The only way you could get in
was to ski in.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: God it was fun!
BM: And the boys skied with the girls and you kept up with everybody? The boys kept up with you?
JL: Oh, sure! Some girls – oh, Jenny Gurnsey, we were not best friends. Dear Aunt Em. I wonder
who lives in that house now?
BM: In Logan?
JL: Aunt Em’s.
BM: Um-hmm. The Eccles House in --
JL: Not Bammie’s, but Aunt Em’s on the corner. Don’t know.
BM: I don’t know.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
26
JL: She had an open house, somebody at Bammie’s house, and had it open and I couldn’t get there
for some reason and I wanted to. So I’ll have to call one day and see if I can go and see her. I did
a lot of growing up in that house.
BM: In Logan?
JL: You bet.
BC: In the summers or all year round?
JL: Mostly the summers. Well, we used to have winter there, Christmas.
BC: Oh.
JL: And Bammie would put one of the Christmas trees in the bay window on the second floor.
BM: I bet that was beautiful.
JL: Oh, it was wonderful!
BM: And so you went up from Salt Lake to Logan for Christmas?
JL: Yeah, and stayed. Bammie had a whole house of people. Mother was there and of course Aunt
Marie was there but she lived in her own house I guess. I used to get so mad at her, but it was
George’s fault, he would just spoil her rotten, you know. All she did was feed the kid, whichever
one she had at the moment, and he would bring the baby to her. Honestly! What a woman.
BM: So these Christmases, this was an annual thing? You went up every Christmas?
JL: Yeah, yeah. Until Bammie decided she wouldn’t stay there anymore. She went down to
California. And then we quit going up there and did Christmas at home. But Bammie stayed there
and then eventually of course we moved Bam down, moved her into the Mayflower apartments
[in Salt Lake City] where she died.
BM: Can I ask you what Logan was like at that time?
JL: Well, it had the streetcar, you know? It went clankety, clankety, clank. And it had Bammie’s
electric car. “Clear, here comes Mrs. Eccles, clear the way!” And Bammie – it had enough juice
in it to take her from her house to Aunt Marie’s. Now that was a pretty good haul up. Back wasn’t
bad, but up was –
BC: Now is Aunt Marie [Marie Eccles Caine] the same – below the university they call the Caine
House?
JL: The old – yeah, yup.
BM: So right on the corner of 500 North –
JL: And – what is that?
BM: 600?
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
27
JL: It’s called “Something Way” or –
BC: Yeah.
BM: It goes right up past Old Main, they could probably see the Tower from their house.
JL: Oh yeah, they lived directly down, actually.
BM: So you went in an electric car from you aunt’s over there –
JL: It was fun!
BM: Oh my goodness, that’s interesting.
JL: It was very sad and I didn’t know it, but Uncle Spence sold Bammie’s [car] (it was the second
one she had too, it was in perfect condition). He sold it to the scrap yard.
BM: Sold the car?
JL: Yes!
BM: Why did he do that?
JL: Huh?
BM: Why did he do that?
JL: Because the War was on and they needed it I guess. And Bammie wasn’t there to drive it. I don’t
think she was. Was she there? I don’t remember when she moved to Salt Lake.
BM: So this would have been the 1940s then when he sold the car?
JL: Yeah.
BM: Hmm.
JL: There’s a statue.
BM: There you go, that’s the sculpture.
JL: Then there’s that.
BM: Oh!
JL: That’s a miniature of the one that’s at Westminster.
BM: Okay.
JL: But it’s life-size; you can sit in a couch beside it. I was trying to think: who is that? I used to go
down to California and stay and visit Em and Noni.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
28
BM: Now who is Noni?
JL: She’s the younger sister and she’s always lived in California, in Berkeley. Just over almost to
Piedmont.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: And Em – after Uncle Lee died – she moved down there and she lived with Noni until Noni
finally kicked her out. Here’s my mother. That’s Mother, and that’s Marriner and that’s Ellen.
BM: Ellen?
JL: Bammie’s next-to-the-youngest.
BM: Oh, okay.
JL: And Merrill.
BM: And you remember them very well?
JL: Oh yeah! Sure, I stayed with them.
BM: Did they ever come over here?
JL: Oh yeah.
BM: And to Bear Lake?
JL: Um-hmm.
BM: So you had company there quite often?
JL: Um-hmm.
BC: And that’s Marriner.
JL: Yes.
BC: Do you remember him at all when he was Secretary of the Treasury?
JL: Sure. I was back in Washington with him. I used to stay with him because I was in barracks and I
didn’t want to be in the barracks very much. So Uncle Marriner would say, “Well come on. You
come stay here if you want to. And just check in and out so I kind of know what and how.” So I
stayed at the [?][Whispering]. It’s kind of posh! It was very posh because the other ones were
over in Arlington. The barracks were just over the Potomac River.
BC: So were you in the Navy, or?
JL: Yeah. I was in the Navy and I loved it! And I loved being in the Navy. And the only reason that I
got out was because I married Fred and I got pregnant purposely. Because I couldn’t get out, I
just couldn’t do it. Then I got pregnant and then I could. No reason I couldn’t have stayed in.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
29
BM: Hmm. When were you – what time period was this when you were back east?
JL: In the Navy before? Who’s that? Who’s that?
BM: Is that a bird?
JL: No, well I guess. I’m looking just over the fence and I think probably it’s the gardeners. They
moved that house.
BC: Oh did they?
JL: Uh-huh.
BM: Beautiful tree.
BC: So did you join the Navy then?
JL: Yeah.
BC: And that was for World War II, or?
JL: When I got to be 21 I joined the Navy. I couldn’t before that, because my dad wouldn’t give his
permission and I had to have my parents [permission]. So finally I got to be 21 and bang! I joined
it.
BM: So how did you tell them that you joined? Your parents?
JL: Very terrified.
[Laughing]
BM: Did you do it face-to-face or did you do it by phone?
JL: No, I did it face-to-face.
BM: Ooh.
JL: Boy Dad! Mother I didn’t care about; but Dad was going to be a case. And he was! He practically
went to Marriner to tell him to get me out of this thing. And Marriner said, “I can’t do that!”
Because he was still Head of the Federal Reserve back in Washington.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: So there I was off to [?] College and Boot Camp. And then when I got out of Boot Camp I went
to Washington D.C. with a Bureau of Ships and that was great because it was a very closed,
small, what they call a Blue Seal office. Nothing ever went out of that office. Everything was
burned, had to be. We camouflaged all the battle ships and they would send [?] to them. And we
would take them and put them on a paper and scale them down to – and put them on a paper and
then put ships out there to see how the ships . If they looked like ships something, blah, blah, or
whether we would camouflage them so they didn’t look like the ones that they were. It was fun, I
like it. As a matter of fact I liked the Navy. I really did. I had a great time. My father and mother
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
30
had conniptions. But I was 21! And I just did it. I must have been a terror for them to raise and I
think probably I was. Dave wasn’t here, my brother. He was in Australia. No, was he in
Australia? Yeah, I guess he was. In the Army.
BM: So he couldn’t even be here to back you up?
JL: No, no. After I got out of the Navy I met – through the S.O.S. or S.S.?
BC: S.S. I think.
JL: Yeah. And I got some kind of – not because of who I was but because of who I had been in the
skiing department and in the skiing mainly and so on, they wanted this run. And now he or she is
a wave and so on. We had fun. I had special [?] that brought me into the studio and oh! Yeah, had
a good time. I like it but I couldn’t stay in when I got pregnant. Which I probably wouldn’t have
gotten pregnant except that’s the only way and Fred had been transferred to Ohio from D.C. and
so the only way I could get there was to get pregnant and get out of the Navy honorably. I did!
Everything just went swell!
BM: And you came back here?
JL: No, I joined Fred in Dayton, Ohio where Rick was born. And that was something else again. I
thought Dad would have a fit! And I said, now never mind, I did this deliberately and I’ll
probably have another one deliberately. So anyway, I had the baby and stayed in the Navy – or
stayed in until Fred was released – and then we checked out and came here. He’d never been here
before. He’d never been west of the Mississippi I don’t think. Poor old guy.
BC: How did you meet Fred?
JL: In the Army-Navy picnic. Creek Park is where I met him. Although that was tough because he
was an officer and I wasn’t. And that made things a little tough sometimes. But we managed,
much to my father’s chagrin. I think he probably – what would he have me – well I would have
stayed in school I guess. I didn’t ever graduate from the university. Because I was busy in the
Navy and I did love it though. I really did. And it was very good for me to do. And I was in a
wonderful office in Washington, on Constitution Avenue, in the Blue Seal room. And that meant
that upon opening and closing that it was always locked. You couldn’t get in there unless you
were admitted by somebody who was your --. We were only about eight or 10 people in this
particular department. And we would camouflage the ships and put them on a board and look at
them out here and see if we had camouflaged out a stack; to change what kind of class it was in.
We burned everything, had to be burned. Nothing went out of that office.
BM: Do you remember where you were when the War ended?
JL: Sure. I was in Dayton, Ohio.
BM: Had you had your baby then.
JL: Yeah.
BM: Rick was already born?
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
31
JL: Yeah, Rick got himself up and born. An OB/GYN, who apparently was a very outstanding and
very something else – OB/GYN doctor – Kirschbaum, I think that was his name. And boy, he
took such good care of me. He thought this was the biggest joke on the Navy he’d ever heard.
And so Dr. Kirschbaum, who was an outstanding, apparently OB/GYN out of Chicago – he’s the
one that delivered me.
BM: Hmm.
JL: Hardly got there in time. I didn’t have much trouble. Oh, I didn’t. Mother was very busy trying on
hats until Dad I thought was absolutely going to croak her.
BM: She was trying on hats while you were –
JL: In labor.
BM: Oh!
JL: Getting ready to go to the hospital. Because you know, where we lived Patterson Village was a
long way from – well, I guess it was at least a half an hour or 45 minutes away from Wright Field
where you had to go to have this baby. It was funny.
Did you see that? Emma Eccles Jones: Educator, Teacher, Friend. (6 March 1898—29 March
1991.)
BC: They published this for the dedication the other day.
JL: Yeah.
BC: Yeah. Somebody told me about it, but I hadn’t seen one yet.
JL: Well, that’s it. I won’t give it to you, but you can probably go and get one.
BC: I will. We’ll put it in our [Special Collections]. I work in the library, so we’ll put it in our [library
at USU.]
JL: Absolutely. I think Rick wrote a lot of it.
BM: Well, we’re just about at the end of our tape. So is there anything else that you would like to add?
JL: No. What do you want to add?
BM: Well.
JL: Or ask? If I can fulfill –
BM: Well you know one question that we were really interested in, that you talked a little bit about in
terms of so many changes going on at Bear Lake. And Bear Lake and Logan Canyon – you
mentioned the road and the bridges. Are there any other significant changes or policies that you
can think of that impacted the lake or the canyon while you were going over there?
JL: Well.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
32
BM: Or even events. Like the Depression, or civil rights, or anything like that?
JL: I went – where was it? You know, it’s about that road that goes up, up, up and comes to where
you turn off to go – what is that road called? The part of it?
BM: Is it the winding part of the road?
JL: No. It’s the one that goes up from the river, over the bridge – they had to redo the bridge like
completely.
[Tape 2 of 2: B]
Yeah. Gee that was a fun one. You know when you go at the top there on that Denny’s dugway
and then turn to get out, you used to go out and around on that point. You can probably still see
the road. And mother was driving this 7 passenger Buick you know it’s just a big hunk of
machinery. That was the climb. And you know, you didn’t just sort of flip up there like you do
now. It was fun though.
Mother was quite adventuresome. I don’t know, I guess she went up to the store and tell Joan she
was there. You didn’t go over Evanston because from Evanston over was dirt road. All through
Woodruff, Randolph up the canyon, it was all dirt.
BM: And you said you came then in most recent years, you came up through Evanston. Where you
going through Woodruff and Randolph at Deseret Ranch?
JL: Yes.
BM: Was that a place that you were in?
JL: Yeah we didn’t go into it. No, we stayed on the road that went past the horse racing and we went
up there and then we just zoomed and kept going until we got to Big Junction. From there you
can go to Jackson Hole or Bear Lake.
BM: Is that Sage Creek Junction?
JL: Yeah, it’s Sage Creek Junction. And yeah, it’s longer but well I just haven’t driven in Logan
forever. I was asking somebody the other day how it was. Could I get through the canyon or
couldn��t I? Cause I was thinking about going up that way.
BC: I think it’s pretty good right now. I don’t think there’s much going on now. So you better do it
this year because they might start all over again. [Meaning road construction.]
JL: Yeah it I otta go. Why didn’t they leave it alone?!
BM: Cause there’s lots of skiers and lots of folks going up and down. And they are in a hurry.
JL: Well, do you think that they are to get up skiing to the meadows there, is it a lot faster now with
the road?
BM: It is. It’s a lot faster. You know 10 years I’ve been here, but it is a lot faster from what people tell
me. It’s still a beautiful ride.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
33
JL: I know. It is. That’s the prettiest. The other one is just interesting kind of. Getting up, over and
dropping down.
BM: But it gets wicked in the wintertime with the weather.
JL: Well, yes it is. I guess it’s a hard road to maintain. They only open it up to the ski area. I don’t
think they open it up and over the top and down do they?
BM: They do keep it open now.
JL: Do they?!
BM: So you remember a time when the road used to just be opened to the top?
JL: Yeah.
BM: Hmmm. And did they gate it?
JL: No… they didn’t gate it. I don’t know. You just knew it wasn’t plowed. That’s how you knew.
You came to a grinding halt.
BM: And the last place you could get to was what? Beaver Mountain?
JL: Mm Hmmm. Yeah.
BM: That’s a truck route now, Janet, with a lot of trucks that go through there pretty much year round.
JL: What? Bear Lake?
BM: Yeah.
JL: Oh. Over the new road?
BM: Yeah.
JL: Oh I’m sure. There was a great increase even before they did this new deal as it started down.
What was it called? Denny’s dugway. I wonder if it’s… is it significantly better?
BM: They’ve taken some of the corners, they windy parts out.
BC: Probably the big thing was they’ve built in a lot of passing lanes, so that you know, if you had a
recreational vehicle that was going slower, they wouldn’t back it up as much. So now you can get
around some of the slower vehicles. It probably saves you 15 minutes.
JL: Honestly, who don’t go that way, go the way that’s not pretty just go to Montpelier [Idaho]; that’s
where people want to go I guess. Course Montpelier is a train …
BC: Train town.
JL: And there’s nothing in St. Charles. And there’s nothing in Paris really. And I don’t know what
they could build there. Or what they would have there.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
34
BM: I think mostly the change now is just homes that are going in. Summer homes and some are
winter ski homes. But mostly just homes because some the ranches that were there are much
smaller or gone. But more, more homes.
JL: Between Montpelier and Lake Town?
BM: Between Paris, St. Charles, and then down I don’t know what the next town would be, but along
that side. Little by little…
JL: They are encroaching on my property and I don’t like it.
BM: Well, Janet, thank you so much for chatting with us this afternoon.
JL: Oh sure! I hope I’ve done something good. Well, if it isn’t right, or you need more whatever, I
will be aboard.
BM: Alright. Well, thank you very much for having us today. We appreciate it.
JL: I hoping I could get you something?
BM: You know I might take a glass of water now. Thank you.
JL: Um hum.

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
1
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee: Janet Quinney Lawson
Place of Interview: 2586 Maywood Drive, Salt Lake City, UT
Date of Interview: April 28, 2008
Interviewer: Brad Cole and Barbara Middleton
Recordist: Brad Cole
Recording Equipment: Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Transcription Equipment used: Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Transcribed by: Susan Gross
Transcript Proofed by: Brad Cole, February 2009; Randy Williams 25 February 2009
Brief Description of Contents: [Janet Quinney Lawson talks about her childhood memories at
her family’s summer home at Bear Lake. She also talks of her childhood memories at family
members’ homes in Cache Valley, Utah. She talks a lot about skiing and sailing on/at the
Wasatch Front, Utah and in Cache Valley and Bear Lake.]
Reference: For instance: BC = Brad Cole (Interviewer)
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer)
JL = Janet Quinney Lawson
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 2: A]
BM: [This is Barbara Middleton of the] Natural Resources at Utah State University. [I am] here with
Brad Cole. Cole [interviewer] is the Director of Special Collections at USU Libraries. And we are
here with Janet Quinney Lawson in her home at 2586 Maywood Drive, in Salt Lake City, on a
beautiful spring day. This is Monday, April 28th [2008] and it’s about 2-2:15 in the afternoon.
So Janet, if you would please say your full name and when and where you were born.
JL: My full name is Janet Quinney Lawson. And I was born here in 1922 at the LDS Hospital, as I
recall.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
2
BM: In Salt Lake City?
JL: Uh-huh. I guess I was born there.
BM: Can I ask you, just to start off would you be willing to share the earliest memories of your father?
JL: Yeah, I was kind of scared of him! He was not a child’s best friend or “daddy.” He was stern and
he lived and he made you kind of tow the mark. As I grew older I began to appreciate him. He
was a superman. I used to run the rivers with him.
BC: What was his name?
JL: My father?
BC: Yes.
JL: S. J. Quinney. Seymour Joseph Quinney.
BM: And running rivers – what kind of rivers are we talking about?
JL: Oh! Colorado and Hell’s Canyon and all the rivers of the west. We used to run them in row boats.
It was great fun, I loved it. And we would do that and pull out wherever we pulled out. I know I
went down the river when I was – gosh, I guess six months or more pregnant with Peter (my
youngest son). But I didn’t tell Dad and I wore, you know a blouse that hung out. And he didn’t
even [know]. He wondered, I think he said, on occasions. But boy when I told him driving out of
Preston, poor father! It was a real blow! Now he wanted to know if Fred knew, and I said, “Well
of course.” “Did your mother know?” and I said, “Yes.” “Did she approve?” I said, “Sure she did,
she thought I was alright to do that.” And I loved it! It was great fun and I didn’t have any
problem. We went down Hell’s Canyon and came out at Preston maybe?
BC: Maybe Lewiston area?
JL: Yeah! Way up there –
BC: Right.
JL: On the Oregon – yeah we pulled out there and then we drove home. We brought a car the bank
had repossessed up in Preston I guess, or some place for Aunt Eve who was Bammie Eccles’
sister and never had any children and so she adopted all of Bammie’s children and all of her
grandchildren. And we were very close and she used to stay at our house. Her husband was an
engineer on the railroad and so he was out of town a lot. And she used to come up and stay with
Bammie in Logan. Then she would come back here and she would come up to the house. She
lived out on the west side way out by Wasatch High School and then she’d come in and up to the
house and stay. And it was great fun, she was a lovely person. She finally devoted a lot of her
time to Bammie up in Logan – she wasn’t really sick but anyway, she was getting old (in those
days). They were half sisters – same father, different mothers. So that’s what we did.
BM: So speaking of mothers, what is your earliest memory of your mom?
JL: My word! [Speaking to herself] Earliest memory [of] mom.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
3
I don’t know! I guess running a pretty tight ship when I was little and not even in school yet. But
I had a friend – a life-long friend that lived across the street: Kay Henderson. She was my dear
friend. We used to go to school together. She’d go with us. She came from a rather upbeat,
youngest Dr. Dave’s family who was an eye, ear, nose and throat [doctor] in Salt Lake. Kay and I
– well we just plain grew up together. She didn’t have quite as athletic of a background. She did
fine, but she came from a family of kind of a bunch of kids and they couldn’t spend the money
for ski clothing and so on. We remained friends all through our lives. She died three years ago in
Cape Cod. It was a good, long-standing relationship I must say.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: And it was fun to go over there because it was a big family. And I had only my brother Dave who
couldn’t be bothered much with me which was fine. But growing up in the neighborhood but it
was fun.
BM: Was she someone that went with you when you traveled to Bear Lake or Logan?
JL: Kay?
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Oh yeah! She went to Bear Lake. Every year she would come up and go with us. They were sort
of, you know, more religious. Her mother didn’t like her to miss church, but she did. My mother
would talk her into it and say that she could go to church at Bear Lake. I don’t remember if she
ever did or not. Maybe we did a few times. I can’t remember really. That wasn’t one of my great
points in growing up.
BM: Would you tell us a little bit about some of your early memories of Bear Lake and traveling over
there?
JL: Oh. Wow. First thing that happened was that we had a seven passenger Buick. Now that’s a pretty
big car and it had little jumpseats. But we always had our dog, Tip, and I had the cat, Tawny, and
three kittens usually. And we would pile into the car and we’d chug along and go up to Logan.
And then we’d spend the night at Bammie’s house—Bammie Eccles’ not Bammie Quinney’s—
but Bammie Eccles’. Then we��d get up the next morning and mother would drive us [o]n that
old, broken down road that was a one-way road really, you know. People just didn’t go up to Bear
Lake that way except people in Logan maybe, but we did! We’d go up there and haul in.
That time we stayed up in Idaho – my first recollection of staying at Bear Lake was in Idaho.
Mother rented the Gray house. Mr. Gray was the First Security Bank’s president in Montpelier,
Idaho. Yeah, that’s how it was. He was there and we rented this house because by now they’d
fallen upon hard times, then they went through a depression. The bank went bust, or whatever. It
was kind of tough. But anyway, we rented that house for quite a few years. Then mother went out
buzzing around one day and the next thing she did was come home and say, “I bought a house.”
So down at Ideal Beach was a house that was owned by a Mr. Boyer who was a very successful (I
don’t know what he was!) man – businessman. That went kind of belly-up and he had to sell the
house. And here was this house that was completely furnished, lock, stock and barrel–silver and
china and bedding and more bedding. And then Dad bought the lot, finally he talked Sister Boyer
(maybe; Sister somebody) – and he sweet-talked her. On part of that lot there was a lumber mill.
And they’d cut the logs which was fine except all the sawdust they pushed into the lake. Well that
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
4
doesn’t deteriorate really. So we had many years where every time we’d go down everybody
would take a bucket of some sort. And we’d haul out the logging –
BM: Sawdust?
JL: Yeah. Well finally we got rid of it I guess. Of course that was many a year ago. Mother came
home and Dad nearly had a fit! But what she got that house for was—lock, stock and barrel. I
think it was something like $800. It was just ridiculous! And it was the house we had. Dad,
finally when Mother told him and he went to see what was going on, he knew the piece of
[land?]. I don’t know what he did. A lawyer did that as a “Thank you very much people.” And so
he was in good standing with the locals.
They just got out and they cut that house in three parts and they moved it! And it wasn’t out that
much. It was just amazing! I remember when they did it and I remember Mother went up to Bear
Lake. And that fireplace of course was stone from across the lake. It was a big hole because they
had to knock it down when they moved the house. So all Mother could see was this hole and oh
she went into great sobs of mourning that the house would never be the same. Well of course it is
the same and much better, and added on to, to some degree. We added on—we changed the
kitchen quite a bit and added another bedroom and bath back there because Mother always had
somebody to go to help. That extended the kitchen on out further and behind the kitchen was
another bedroom.
BM: Um-hmm. Now Ideal Beach is – when I look at this map – Ideal Beach is south of the Junction
coming over to Garden City, but you were saying you were north to start off with?
JL: Oh no, no, no. Here we are. Let’s see. [Looking at a map]
BM: Here’s Ideal.
JL: Here’s Ideal. We’re down there to – what does that say?
BM: That says Ideal Beach, Sweet Water Marina. So they’re just showing –
JL: There, yeah well here’s –
BM: That’s the Highway rest stop down there. So right around Rendezvous Beach State Park, which is
very historic.
JL: Yeah. We moved it down about 2 miles that way and about one mile from Garden City.
BM: My goodness! And you literally picked up the house and moved it?
JL: Yeah, it was just crazy what they did!
BC: About what year was that, do you remember?
JL: Well I can think, but wait a minute. Let’s see – I think I was 16 maybe; 15 or 16. Yeah, so how
old would that make me? Since I’m 86.
BC: So it would have been about 1937.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
5
JL: Yeah, something.
BC: You said you spent a few years in Montpelier? Would that have been in the early 1930s? When
you lived in Montpelier and rented Mr. Gray’s house?
JL: No, that was in Fish Haven!
BC: Fish Haven?
JL: Down on the lake. That was their summer home!
BC: Oh, okay. So he lived in Montpelier, but also had a house [on the lake] – okay.
JL: Yeah they lived in Montpelier – Banker Gray – and had a beautiful home there. And there was
Grove and Fred. Fred was the oldest son, then they had Grove and then they had a sister. What
was her name? She was a cripple; she was born with faulty legs or something, I don’t remember
what. She was a lovely person but she was certainly incapacitated. Times were hard. They opened
up this fox farm in Fish Haven—Grove and Fred. Fred first and then he went off and went into
business and then Grove took it over. And they raised these [foxes], they were a big thing in
those days I guess.
BM: And they were fox they were raising?
JL: Yeah, they were foxes.
BM: And what were they raising them for?
JL: For the fur.
BM: Okay. How interesting.
JL: Yeah, they really would. Fur coats; not really coats so much, it would take too many foxes. Oh, I
remember. I never went down there though when they were slaughtering the foxes. That was not
my cup of tea. Nor go out – yeah I did. I went out with them when they would go buy an old
horse that was tired and slaughter it to feed the foxes. And of course you had to be down there
every day. They had to eat. It was fun, I liked it. It’s nothing anybody else would like, but I did.
Getting all bloody! Mother used to just shake her head and say, “My goodness, what have I got
here?” See I was a little, bitty kid. I wasn’t very big at all. I mean structurally I was very small,
but boy I was a terror I guess! Poor thing.
BM: Now did you go over there winter as well as summer?
JL: Huh-uh. No, never did.
BM: So mostly summer?
JL: Yeah. What we usually did was plan to go up there on, well around the 4th of July and then we���d
close it up to some degree and get somebody to come in and drain the water; which we still do.
But things are changing up there; very definitely changing. And I can envision–we’re not
building anymore house. Rick was talking, I know, about building on to the bedroom wing and
putting in another few bedrooms and a bath. I think we kind of decided that wasn’t a good plan.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
6
Anyway, I don’t think it’s happening, and it’s not my problem. I’m not going to be here to run
that.
BM: So when you say, “things are changing up there,” what do you mean? What kinds of things did
you see change?
JL: Oh! Oh the building is simply incredible that’s going on. And across the street and on up Hodge’s
Canyon it’s all subdivided and people are building houses up on the hillside. And then they come
down and go probably over to Ideal Beach, Bluewater Beach and go on to swim or put their boats
in or whatever they have.
BM: Was that something that you did when you were a child, boating?
JL: Yeah. Dad had the only sailboat on the lake I guess, for years. And then we also had an outboard
motor boat and then we got – well, let’s see. What have we got up there now? Peter has a Hobie
Cat up there. (Peter is my youngest son.) And he has this Hobie Cat and he also has – yeah I think
he’s got a motor boat too.
BM: So sailing was something that you learned from your father?
JL: What?
BM: Sailing was something you learned from your father?
JL: Yeah.
BM: Did your mother also sail?
JL: No, she didn’t. That wasn’t her cup of [tea]– she’d go out there sometimes with Dad. They’d go
out alone and just sail. Dad would sail very quietly, not too far out from the shore. But, yeah she
went out boating. She went out boating – I had a boat too. That was a power boat. You know that
lake isn’t constant. It varies – they pumped it out for irrigation upstream. Well, they don’t want it
anymore upstream. Anyway, last year they pumped because the pumps would run out of – there
was no water for them. And now they’re going to let that go back. They’ve sold it to, I don’t
remember the name of the people they sold it to, but they are not interested in alfalfa which is
what they used the water for.
[Looking out the window] Oh, whoa. Looking out there at the sky, can you see?
BM: Oh yeah; leaving a jet trail.
JL: You see that? Yeah. Big old thing going across.
Dad had a lot of foresight; however people don’t know and we don’t tell them that we have as
much land as we have. But we’re well-protected on the north side and the south side of our
property. And it of course goes to the children and I guess they like it. I think they’ll use it.
[Speaking to somebody else] Who’s that?
BM: Sounds like somebody is talking on the phone.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
7
JL: Maybe.
And I don’t know, I just had some rare old times and fun times up there; very happy memories. It
[Bear Lake property] has this great, big screened-in porch that goes all around half the house and
the dining room table is outside. And there is a couch out there and Grandfather Eccles’ rocking
chair, old leather rocking chair. It just has lots of memories. We have a book that we keep and
people write in it.
BM: Like the visitors that come?
JL: Yeah, yeah. And it’s nice and it’s fun. And it’s fun to look back and it’s fun to look and see when
I decided I better go home is when I was going to have that baby. And I did.
BM: [Laughing] Now which child was that then?
JL: It was Peter.
BM: Peter? Okay.
JL: Yeah. See, he’s 10 years younger. He was really an after-thought. He wasn’t a happenstance – he
was planned on and conceived. And he went down Hell’s Canyon with me unborn. I didn’t tell
Mother about it. I told Dad about it on the way home. And he said, “Does your mother know?”
And I said, “Yeah.” He said, “I thought you were looking a little dumpy.” Yeah, that was May
and Peter was born in August. Yeah, I was well along. I didn’t care, that was fun. I skied and I did
everything!
BM: Could you tell us a little bit about your skiing?
JL: Well –
BM: Where did you start?
JL: There is Ecker Hill up Parley’s Canyon; Dave and Dad got involved in that through the jumping.
Dad got interested in judging and got interested in the Norwegian people and he judged all the
time up there, ski-jumping. And that is how Dave got going. I didn’t ever go off Ecker Hill—I
was too little. I went off Rasmussen’s Hill which was down the way. But heavens! I didn’t even
have bindings then. I think we took inner tubes and cut them and put them around the toe and
around the outside of the toe and around the back. Those were our bindings. That was many a
year ago!
BM: That was inner tubing on wood?
JL: Well the inner tubing I used for bindings –
BM: Oh!
JL: They were like the old wood skis with a toe strap. That was it. And then you got a hold of that
and then you got a hold of the inner tube and cut a piece about that thick and put it over your toe
and over the toe of your boot and back over your hill and off you went on Rasmussen’s Jump.
And it was a scaffold that was built and came down and landed on the hill and ran out. Oh, it was
fun!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
8
BM: How did you get up to the top?
JL: Climbed.
BM: On snowshoes, or boots?
JL: No, no. We just climbed on our feet on the little hill I jumped. But the boys, the big jumpers – Al
Bangerter and his tribe and us – they just put their skis over their shoulder and walked up to the
top.
BM: Hmm.
JL: Boy am I thirsty. Do you want some water or something?
BM: Actually, I’m fine.
BC: I’m fine right now.
JL: Are you? Alright.
BM: So those are the days before ski lifts and riding on top of the mountain.
JL: Dad did the first lift in Alta – Collins lift – he did that. I mean when I say he did it – he got 10
business friends of his to each put in x number of dollars (which I don’t know). Ecker Hill was
there, but it was pretty rough and I think they used it, but not for tournaments and things. But he
did. They built that and set it up. Now how does that work? I was thinking that it was the biggest
ski jump in North America. Whether it was there or whether it was – I don’t know – in the
Northwest. I don’t know. I would have to research that and look it up. But there wasn’t an awful
lot of ski jumping even.
But then I got my first pair of skis. I was little – I didn’t grow very much.
[Tape 1 of 2: B]
JL: Celeste can get you something. These caregivers I have are just wonderful.
BM: Oh, I bet. It’s nice to have people here.
JL: Yeah. Well I didn’t have them here except during the day, but then I fell a year ago in Moab and
cracked it!
BM: So now you have someone with you day and night.
JL: I have somebody, yeah. I have two of them that are here day and night.
BM: That’s great.
JL: Yeah it is! I like it and they seem to like it, so.
BM: So let’s go back to something you were saying. I am trying to picture the trip when you were a
young girl from, not just Salt Lake to Logan, but Logan over –
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
9
JL: To Bear Lake?
BM: -- to Bear Lake. I’m trying to picture that road.
JL: Well at first it was even just a dirt road. Mother in the seven passenger car and the cat and the dog
and a couple of kittens and Dave and I was there and BM was there I guess (or some household
help). And we’d go to Logan and stay overnight at Bammie’s house – Grandmother Eccles’ house
– and go chuckety, chuckety, chuck the next day. And sometimes your old car would heat up and
you would have to sit there and wait for it to cool down so you could go on [laughing]. But we
always stopped at Rick Springs.
BM: Oh, sure!
JL: That was very different then than it is now. Because, I don’t know what they’ve done but you
can’t even hardly see it without getting out and walking! Well, I mean it wasn’t that way in those
days.
BM: So you got there and you parked your car, and what did you do at Ricks Springs?
JL: Oh, we’d have a drink or have a sandwich or have some water. It was just halfway and it was
good and it was fun and it was nice. And we always did that. Now I flew past – well I haven’t
been up through Logan Canyon because it’s been all under construction and a mess. And then
going in Roy into Ogden – that highway is just one big, bloody mess and I haven’t gone there. I
don’t when that’s ever going to get done. And I don’t know when they’re going to quit
monkeying with that road up the canyon.
BM: Well they just did some bridge improvements, and that was quite –
JL: Oh yeah.
BM: -- quite a bit as far as stopping traffic one-way, and.
JL: Yeah, because that one bridge goes over a great, big –
BM: Oh, that’s the large one on the curve?
JL: Yeah.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: And I don’t know. I haven’t been up Logan Canyon—I don’t remember if I even went up last
year because I just get on and zoom up here to Evanston and then-
BM: So that’s your new route?
JL: Yeah.
BM: Over 80 to Evanston and then up?
JL: Um-hmm.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
10
BM: Um-hmm. Now when you went through the earlier part when you went through Logan Canyon,
did you ever go to some of the places like Ephraim’s Grave (the big bear), or ?
JL: Uh-huh. And they had, what an MIA Home or something?
BM: What is that?
JL: Up at the first dam or something?
BM: Oh!
JL: No, second dam I guess. And we used to cross the bridge and go up there and there was – I don’t
know, and MIA. Maybe it wasn’t, maybe it was something else. I don’t know.
BM: Hmm.
JL: But anyway it was a camp and the kids used to go up there for, you know, camping out – like Girl
Scouts, only they were something else in those days.
BC: So when you say, “MIA,” do you mean Mutual Improvement Association?
JL: Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. [Mostly likely talking about Camp Lomia, past 3rd Dam a few miles.]
BM: So was that possibly the Scout Camp at St. Anne’s?
BC: Might be, I’m not sure.
JL: What?
BM: Was it St. Anne’s?
JL: What ?
BM: The camp you’re talking about?
JL: I don’t know.
BM: Hmm. It was on the right hand side as you go up the canyon?
JL: You went over the dam there, which they used, and the water that came out of there they dammed
it up. So, I don’t know what it was called. And besides it’s all different now. Utah State has that
big forestry place up there too.
BM: Um-hmm. Have you been there?
JL: Yeah. That’s Mr. Dad’s. I said, “Now you quit that!” He said, “Wouldn’t you rather have me
interested in it than somebody else?” I said, “Yes I would.”
BM: So this is the forestry camp?
JL: Uh-huh.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
11
BM: That’s on the right-hand side as you go up.
JL: Um-hmm.
BM: And was the – let’s see was it 1938 was the first summer camp up there? 1936? Somewhere in
that time?
JL: Um-hmm.
BM: And so what is your dad have to do with that?
JL: Well, he gave them the money to start the training camp up there.
BM: Oh, okay.
JL: And bring the animals and so on.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: So that’s what he did.
BM: It is a very important place for a lot of the foresters to get their start.
JL: Oh I think so.
BM: Yeah.
JL: A lot of foresters. Um-hmm.
BM: Also fire. As far as training young men to help with forest fires.
JL: Now, that I didn’t know. But that’s interesting. It’s a good place, should be.
BM: Yeah.
JL: I don’t know why I don’t. I think they have one cabin up there that they save for Dad and Mother
or for me or somebody to go up and stay overnight. I think I told somebody; who would I have
told –
BM: Was it Thad maybe?
JL: Uh-huh, probably Thad.
BM: So you have gone up and camped up at the Forestry Camp?
JL: Yeah!
BM: Oh, alright. Because there is one building that is the older building.
JL: Yeah!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
12
BM: With all the pictures in it and the stove –
JL: Right, right.
BM: Okay.
JL: What’s that called?
BM: Well that is the old Forestry Camp CCC building.
JL: Oh yeah.
BM: And it’s the oldest building –
JL: There.
BM: It’s one of the oldest buildings there. And then there’s a larger dorm, which sleeps about 30
people.
JL: There?
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Yeah, that’s right. I do remember that.
BM: Do you also remember – you know, part of that camp burned.
JL: Oh, it certainly did! I had forgotten that. It really burned.
BM: The kitchen – the lodge.
JL: Oh, that was – they had to rebuild it totally didn’t they?
BM: We haven’t rebuilt it yet.
JL: Oh, I thought we had.
BM: No, not yet. We’re looking, we’re hoping. We’re hoping. But right now it’s an open area; there’s
a small trailer that was there that serviced some of the work, but nothing like the beautiful lodge
that you must remember.
JL: Yeah, although it was –
BM: The dining hall –
JL: Yeah. It was kind of little, as I recall.
BM: Was it?
JL: Yeah, it wasn’t like – in comparison to maybe the Girl Scout camp down here or –
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
13
BM: Camp Cloud Rim?
JL: Rim.
BM: Right, right.
JL: Camp Cloud Rim.
BM: Which was also a CCC building.
JL: Well I guess those lakes [cabins?] were owned by people, you know. They weren’t just sitting
there. I’m trying to think who – John Wallace; the Wallace family had up there. And the Brimhall
family; and I don’t know. Of course they gave it over to the Girl Scouts and now they use it and
have added onto it even since I was there.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: For the dedication of the building or whatever.
BM: And that was back in the late 1990s.
JL: I guess, yeah.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: I guess it was.
BM: Yeah.
JL: Did they name it for me or something?
BM: They did! Your name is on that building. [The Janet Quinney Lawson camp?]
JL: I just live in horror.
[Laughing]
JL: I say, “I’m giving you the money and you’re to go ahead, but don’t be putting my name.” There it
was.
BM: [Laughing] It’s on a building on campus too, up at Utah State.
JL: Yes it was! What was it – oh that little Quonset hut. Yeah! That’s a great place.
BM: That’s a great building though.
JL: Oh, it is! I’ve been there when little kids have been there. One of them really attached himself to
me. Poor little things.
BM: Was that the Adaptive Technology part where they’re in the basement there?
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
14
JL: Yeah.
BM: Is there a lot of children in that program?
JL: Yeah that are learning to speak or walk, or – yeah, they’re physically limited.
BM: Right.
JL: But it’s a great thing that they can do what they’re doing in that Quonset hut.
BM: Um-hmm. And they help a lot of children get around.
JL: Oh, I know. I just know they do. And that cute thing out in front of the Edith Bowen – is it the
Edith Bowen and Emma Eccles Jones, are they here?
BM: They are. Emma Eccles Jones Building is the education building and then Edith Bowen is the lab
school, which is right next door.
JL: Yeah. Is it west or is it –?
BM: Edith Bowen is east –
JL: Yeah, it’s east –
BM: And then there is a sculpture –
JL: Yeah, that’s a Van Dam
BM: Right, right. With the two children and then the –
JL: Yeah, then, uh-huh. And then Aunt Em’s building.
BM: Right.
JL: Dad’s building is there too; Dad and Mother’s.
BM: Well that would be the College of Natural Resources building.
JL: That’s right.
BM: Right, right. And that’s right behind, that’s right to the south –
JL: South.
BM: Of your Quonset hut, that you call it.
JL: That’s right. Well, that’s what it is!
BM: It is! And you know there are still folks that come on campus that say, “I remember when that
was a Quonset hut.” And it kind of still looks like a Quonset hut!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
15
JL: I think it does. Yeah, I do.
BM: It has the remote sensing lab in it now. Where they do a lot of the geographic maps.
JL: Oh there?
BM: Um-hmm. There are several entities in that building.
JL: Besides the little kids?
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Oh. Well I just know that those little children – it’s wonderful when they can finally get them out.
They’re kind of timid about everything of course, because they’ve been so protected. But, what a
break for the parents and the children themselves to be able to get out.
BM: And it’s also a great training center for the students.
JL: Terrific! Just marvelous!
BM: There are a lot of classes that go through there.
JL: Well there’s kind of a lot of Eccles/Quinney stuff up there somehow.
BM: There sure is! Now speaking of USU and getting back to Bear Lake – if you’re down near Ideal
Beach, aren’t you also close to the USU –
JL: Yes! That Dad built?
BM: Oh!
JL: I think Dad built that – gave them the money to build it. Yeah, it’s just down, maybe, oh, maybe
three-quarters of a mile on the road.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: But you can walk it. Of course now let’s hope that they’ll be good enough to – can’t I get you
anything? I feel so –
BM: No, I’m fine.
JL: I feel terrible. [Ms Lawson is concerned for her guest’s needs.]
BC: Oh, we’re fine.
BM: When you were there, you talked about sailing and you talked about swimming. Were there also
holidays, like Raspberry Days?
JL: Oh yes! And I remember when the raspberries weren’t [growing] because they got diseased! A
few years ago actually, that was. Oh yes, indeed!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
16
BM: Hmm. So what did you do for Raspberry Days?
JL: Bought them and ate them.
[Laughing]
BC: Well did they have – when you were a little girl, did they have raspberries then? Or did that came
later?
JL: No, I think that came later. I think that was started by the Hodges family and their boys. And they
planted those and then psh! I don’t know what happened. They got a disease though, and it really
– it was something they couldn’t spray and kill and have it alright. It imbedded itself and would
appear on the next year if you planted them. So, I don’t know. And now – I don’t know what
they’re doing now. They’re behind that – what’s that called? That new place by the marina, only
on the other side of the road?
BM: Oh that large development?
JL: Yeah. And then on up and up and up and up. Yeah. And that’s all being subdivided. And honestly
I think Bear Lake is seeing the best of times. It’s – I’m concerned. I think it’s just going to
develop and develop and more and more and more. And people are able to get there and they’re
building houses . I don’t know, Well, I’ve got enough space that I don’t need to worry too much
about it.
BM: When you were over there before the development, do you remember cattle or sheep, or – with
those hills where the homes are going – what was that landscape like?
JL: Yeah. They ran cattle up Hodges Canyon.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: They could run cattle up there. And they did and I don’t know whether they still can or just don’t
do it because nobody’s interested in doing that kind of thing. All those people died; faded away.
Although Rula is here and Dolly is here. And Dolly has died and Rula – Dad bought the piece
that goes in front of Rula’s house is on that side. And she – what did they do? They finally got her
to go over to Logan to live in a place, a house, a rest home or something in the winter. Because
they said they wouldn’t leave her up there in the winter anymore, she couldn’t navigate. So I
don’t know. I may see her, I hope so. I’ll have to find out.
BM: And who is Rula?
JL: Well, she’s a neighbor on the east side. And they have a house. And Tom used to help Dad all the
time with the planting of the garden vegetables and so on. And mowing and one thing or another.
Well, he died and so it was Rula’s. And so she sold us this section that was theirs, adjacent to our
north boundary. It’s a south boundary and it’s a lot. And there’s nothing there except, oh beautiful
roses.
BM: Hmm.
JL: I don’t know, I think one day maybe one of the kids will build something there. I’ve got a few of
them hanging around that are entitled to do what they want to do.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
17
BM: Okay, so who’s the other person you were talking about? Dolly was another neighbor?
JL: Yeah and she was on the other side of Joel.
BM: Okay.
JL: And they just loved him. Oh they just did. And they just used to open our house and clean it and
so on. Of course those days have gone. Dolly died a couple of years ago I guess. I believe she
was a year older than I am. Maybe two. And Rula is a year younger. I think she had about 12 –
Grandma Hodges. And oh, did she like Joel! He could just wiggle her out of anything.
[Laughing]
JL: And then he would do a lot, you know, and they had legal problems. Dad would help them out.
And he was very kind. And they all knew it and all loved him for it and it was beneficial to us.
Because see we own – well, God I don’t know how many front feet. I don’t tell them that because
they don’t tax us. It’s undeveloped.
BC: Yeah.
BM: Sure.
JL: But Dad’s never paid taxes. It’s called wetland. And actually it is. It goes down toward the USU
building. There are a couple of houses and then the building is there.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: And it goes down there.
BC: When you’d go up there in the summer as a young child, did your dad stay up with you for the
whole summer or did he come back to Salt Lake?
JL: Oh, he’d come back, you know.
BC: Uh-huh.
JL: I think he just felt that he had to get back home. And he’d – sometimes he would stay up an extra
day or two, but he didn’t stay up like Mother did. But Mother would pack us up and go in. Of
course we had Mr. Coddle then and the store and that was fine. But that’s no longer. It’s all so
changed.
BC: And would you spend any time up in the mountains hiking, riding horses or anything like that?
JL: Huh-uh. No, nope. I just did it on the lake. And I rode horses on the lake.
BM: Huh. Now who had the horses?
JL: Oh, somebody local. Yeah. I’d say hey, one of the Hodges I suppose. Yeah, even had my little
kids which weren’t so little anymore – although maybe he died. They tore – I’m so mad at them,
you know? Up there across the street from my place there was that old house and then that little
log cabin that was the original old house. And when they bought that land they ripped it all down!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
18
And that was a terrible thing to have done! I mean that was kind of a historical, little, old log
cabin!
BM: Did you know the people that lived there?
JL: Yeah, I did. He was interested in nothing but the money. Ron Hansen was his name. But I don’t
know. Things will change, there’s no question about it. Gosh! I look up there to see Dad and was
sitting down on the porch that we added on outside, off the dining room – the screened in porch.
And it was right after he went up there after he had surgery.
BM: Hmm. So it was a place he went to recuperate and rest?
JL: Uh-huh. He loved it! He just loved it. And of course anything he did was for improvement. Now
if that lake will get back up, I will be ever so grateful. And it may. Because the people who
bought it from Scottish Power they can’t pump it anymore. They used to pump it and pump it
upstream (or downstream, whatever you want) on up into Idaho, to give the farmers more, oh
what do I want?
BC: For irrigation water.
JL: Yeah, for other chokecherry bushes.
BM: Oh.
JL: And they don’t do that anymore. They haven’t run the way -- . Yeah, they used to – they’d sell
the chokecherries all the time. In Garden City you’d go to the stand and buy chokecherries.
BM: Huh.
JL: Take them home and put them in a pot and boil them up – ooh! Good!
BM: And ate them as what? As a sauce, or [unclear]
JL: No. Then you strain it and take it and thicken it as a chokecherry jelly or –
BM: Sounds like one of your favorites!
JL: Oh yeah! Gee it was good!
BM: Huh. And so you put it on toast, or?
JL: Yes! Anything you’d put jam on! It was just delicious. And those days are gone! They just are. I
looked out – going up toward Logan out of Garden City – here all this is subdivided down to that
place, that new –
BM: That new development down there.
JL: Yeah, whatever that is. And I may not live to see it, but then I may live to see some, but I guess
it’s just going like crazy.
BC: It is.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
19
JL: Is it?
BC: Yeah, I think it’s –
JL: People are buying it and building and so on.
BM: And it’s a beautiful place.
JL: Oh! Of course it is. It’s just lovely. And down to the boat marina.
BM: Do you remember the refuge? The wildlife refuge on the north end of the lake? Was that there, or
was that yet to be established? When you go past the boat marina and the state park, and you
continue north –
JL: Yes.
BM: Towards Montpelier, around the north end is now a National Wildlife Refuge.
JL: It is?!
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Well, I don’t know. I’ve driven around the lake and I know people that live there.
BM: I’m trying to think of the year when that was established. Because I think you would have been
over there.
JL: Oh, I know doubt would have!
BM: It’s waterfowl and swans.
JL: It’s beautiful! It’s more at the north end than the south end. Yeah. Yeah, I know where you mean.
BM: Because part of the refuge – I’m wondering if you ever swam at this beach on the north end of the
lake called – North Beach State Park? Is that it?
JL: What is it called?
BM: The very north end of the beach – by the pump houses.
JL: Yeah, by the pump house.
BM: That’s a very popular swimming place.
JL: Well it is for the people that are up in Montpelier and Paris and St. Charles and so on, but there
are no – there are some hot springs over there too.
BM: That’s right.
JL: Yeah and they’ve been there forever because I was a little kid and Mother used to take us to swim
in it!
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
20
BM: At the hot springs?
JL: Yeah!
BM: Oh, really?
JL: So it’s really been there forever.
BC: Oh.
BM: That’s a very famous hot springs place. There was a hotel there.
JL: Yeah. I don’t think – yes, I guess there, but that was really in the 1800s wasn’t it?
BM: Yes, the late 1800s and 1900s.
JL: Yeah, I know. But Mom used to take us up there. She didn’t like us to go swimming too much
because she didn’t think it was very clean.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Yeah, I don’t suppose it was. And anyway I don’t know whether there is still swimming in there
or not.
BM: There are still hot springs back there in that area but the building is gone.
JL: But the building is gone, so nobody really swims?
BM: I think only locals who really know it’s there.
JL: Oh.
BM: But that is more off the north east corner of the lake.
JL: That’s right.
BM: Back towards the Bear River and the mountains then, close to Wyoming?
JL: Yeah.
BM: My goodness. You really got around! Holy cow.
JL: And the Nebeker Ranch, which was big and now the kids are running it again. I don’t, whose it
is? Is it Paul? See Dad was partners with all those gentleman. Paul, and –
BM: Um-hmm. Partners in the law firm, you’re saying?
JL: Uh-huh.
BM: Right.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
21
JL: They’re all gone, but their issue is there. And I don’t know who is over in their house. I know that
the gals and boys – or boy and gal – that run the wonderful little stand that do those little donuts –
ummm. [Licking her lips]
[Laughing]
BM: Wait, what donuts are these?
JL: Uh, they just fry them right there. They are just little things like that. And oh boy! Are they good!
I want to go out and get them. And then they also – they had some, they showed it to me anyway,
chokecherry. But that is gone – that day and era. And you know, that’s kind of too bad.
BC: Yeah, it is.
JL: I feel sorry about that. I used to pick them.
[Tape 2 of 2: A]
BM: Tape 2, side 2[1].
JL: Yes.
BM: Here with Janet Quinney Lawson and we’re continuing with our Bear Lake stories.
So he still sails up there? Peter?
JL: Yes! And his kids; you know Peter’s kids are getting big! He married and he got these two – after
he was divorced from [?] and he remarried. And he has two little kids – three and five. And that’s
pretty little. They come up. They come up for a week or ten days and they just love it and we love
having them.
BM: Oh, I bet!
JL: And it’s the way it should be used.
BM: Now are they swimmers as well as sailors?
JL: Oh yes! Sure are. Is the Bear Lake monster for real?
BM: Ah! You remember the Bear Lake monster?
JL: Oh sure! [Laughing]
BM: Tell us about that.
JL: I don’t –
BM: I actually have that in my notes as one of the myths or legends about –
JL: Yeah, it is.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
22
BM: So what did you hear about it?
JL: It’s exactly it – that it would come out and you better mind your p’s and q’s or it would get you!
And it was usually at dusk or after.
BM: Uh-huh. What did it look like?
JL: I don’t know! It sort of was large and it sort of had a long neck that would recoil in I guess and
just its head would be there; or it would be out standing up. What’s he got here?
[Reading] Is the Bear Lake monster for real?
Did I give you one of these?
BM: No, that’s fine, you can keep that.
JL: Don’t you want one?
BM: Nope, that’s fine. You can keep that.
JL: I’ve got more.
BM: That’s okay. On the monster, have you told your new grandchildren about this? Peter’s children?
JL: Yeah, Peter’s. Uh-huh, two little fellows.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: Um-hmm.
BM: So they know about the Bear Lake monster?
JL: Oh they do! And they’re sure they saw it. And as a matter of fact sometimes, you know, the 4th of
July or 24th some boats get together and make a Bear Lake monster out of it. Oh yeah, it’s fun.
BM: Well you know I also wondered if you fished there because there are fish in the lake.
JL: Yeah, but they’re trash fish usually, like the sucker. They’re no good eating, they’re nasty. Yeah
you can go and if you’re very patient and want to do it. The trout you just can’t catch, but
gradually I think it will restore itself.
BM: Um-hmm.
BC: What about your father? Did he fish at all?
JL: Oh yes! He was a great fisherman. Not really so much there, but yeah. But he fished there, sure.
But it just didn’t yield anything but carp and sucker. They were so stupid you could catch them in
a net.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
23
BM: Wow. When you talk about Bear Lake – that’s a summer place and you’re a skier so you’re
coming down here to the Salt Lake City front – where was Beaver Mountain with the
development of that ski resort when you were a young child?
JL: It wasn’t.
BM: It wasn’t there.
JL: No. That area was called Beaver Mountain. But I remember when it opened.
BM: You do?
JL: And I remember the people – I can’t tell you now, I just can’t – who opened it.
BM: Were those the Seeholzers?
JL: Yes, maybe.
BM: Okay.
JL: Maybe.
BM: And so, how old were you when that [Beaver] opened?
JL: I was probably 14 or 15 I think, because I raced up there.
BM: Oh you did!
JL: Yeah. And it wasn’t anything like it is now. I mean you have to go back up in, well that wasn’t
like that. It was, seems to me, you just go off the road and go on up.
BM: Um-hmm. Did it have a tow lift?
JL: Well, actually yeah it did, it had a tow. But it wasn’t developed really, [back] then it had a single
chair lift. I think it still does perhaps.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: I don’t know; I haven’t been up to it. I’m very naughty about that.
BM: It’s gotten pretty spiffy.
JL: I guess it really, really has and I guess it’s just wonderful skiing!
BM: Um-hmm. And the Seeholzer family still has the operation.
JL: The rights? They do? My word!
BM: And it’s grown. So you raced there as a child?
JL: Uh-huh.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
24
BM: Downhill ski racing.
JL: Uh-huh. And giant slalom, we did that there too. And we did slalom; yeah, we did all of them.
BM: Were they also jumping up there?
JL: Not really.
BM: No?
JL: No, the jumping was mostly down here, up at Ecker Hill. [Ecker Hill is in Wasatch County] I’ve
got some pictures that Peter [Lawson] has restored (and maybe some of them are up at the
University, I don’t know) of the jumping days with Alf and Sverre and Corey [Engen]. Now
they’re all gone. I think, to my knowledge though, Alf’s wife Evelyn is still alive. I’m not sure,
but I believe she is.
BM: This is Evelyn Engen?
JL: Uh-huh.
BM: I’m not sure. I don’t know the name. I know the name Alf.
JL: Uh-huh, he was the older brother of the three. There was Alf and then there’s Sverre and Corey.
And they all moved over here gradually. And then their parents moved over here. [Mrs. Engen
moved to Utah, but her husband was deceased.] And she was Alf’s wife (she’s a pain in the butt!
That’s not nice, but anyway she is.) She lives on an old farm. I think it’s an old farm. Maybe it’s
not, maybe it’s out on the – I don’t know. It’s out there in one of those condominium
developments.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: And I’ve seen her on occasions at some gatherings skiing, but I haven’t seen her since the last ski
archives up there.
BM: At the university?
JL: No. Up at the – what do they call it? That what I’m trying to think.
BC: The University of Utah Ski Archives?
JL: Yeah, that’s what it is. And that’s called something – I can’t think what it’s called. [The Alf
Engen Ski Museum in Park City.]
BM: Is it Ski Meister? Or is that a magazine?
JL: Maybe it is.
BM: Hmm. But they celebrate each year, and that’s what you’ve been back to? Hmm.
JL: I think Alf’s book, or Corey’s book – was it Corey or Alf or Sverre? Maybe Sverre’s book. Over
there, can you see it?
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
25
BC: Yeah. There’s one called First Tracks?
JL: Yeah, that’s the endurance.
BC: Yeah. Let’s see –
JL: He’s gone.
BC: The Wasatch Mountains –
JL: They’ve all died but me. And as my Dad said, “You’re too ornery.”
[Laughing]
BM: So you’ve skied with all of them?
JL: Yeah.
BM: That was part of your –
JL: bringing up.
BM: Gee.
JL: Oh yeah. I skied, as I say, when you put the inner tube around your boot and binding and that was
at Ecker Hill, that’s where we went. So of course it was open. Unless you skied, and we did later
on and I did too. You know, you would drive up Silver King Mine and hike up and over and drop
down into Brighton and stay at [?]; Mrs. Howardy would run that. The only way you could get in
was to ski in.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: God it was fun!
BM: And the boys skied with the girls and you kept up with everybody? The boys kept up with you?
JL: Oh, sure! Some girls – oh, Jenny Gurnsey, we were not best friends. Dear Aunt Em. I wonder
who lives in that house now?
BM: In Logan?
JL: Aunt Em’s.
BM: Um-hmm. The Eccles House in --
JL: Not Bammie’s, but Aunt Em’s on the corner. Don’t know.
BM: I don’t know.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
26
JL: She had an open house, somebody at Bammie’s house, and had it open and I couldn’t get there
for some reason and I wanted to. So I’ll have to call one day and see if I can go and see her. I did
a lot of growing up in that house.
BM: In Logan?
JL: You bet.
BC: In the summers or all year round?
JL: Mostly the summers. Well, we used to have winter there, Christmas.
BC: Oh.
JL: And Bammie would put one of the Christmas trees in the bay window on the second floor.
BM: I bet that was beautiful.
JL: Oh, it was wonderful!
BM: And so you went up from Salt Lake to Logan for Christmas?
JL: Yeah, and stayed. Bammie had a whole house of people. Mother was there and of course Aunt
Marie was there but she lived in her own house I guess. I used to get so mad at her, but it was
George’s fault, he would just spoil her rotten, you know. All she did was feed the kid, whichever
one she had at the moment, and he would bring the baby to her. Honestly! What a woman.
BM: So these Christmases, this was an annual thing? You went up every Christmas?
JL: Yeah, yeah. Until Bammie decided she wouldn’t stay there anymore. She went down to
California. And then we quit going up there and did Christmas at home. But Bammie stayed there
and then eventually of course we moved Bam down, moved her into the Mayflower apartments
[in Salt Lake City] where she died.
BM: Can I ask you what Logan was like at that time?
JL: Well, it had the streetcar, you know? It went clankety, clankety, clank. And it had Bammie’s
electric car. “Clear, here comes Mrs. Eccles, clear the way!” And Bammie – it had enough juice
in it to take her from her house to Aunt Marie’s. Now that was a pretty good haul up. Back wasn’t
bad, but up was –
BC: Now is Aunt Marie [Marie Eccles Caine] the same – below the university they call the Caine
House?
JL: The old – yeah, yup.
BM: So right on the corner of 500 North –
JL: And – what is that?
BM: 600?
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
27
JL: It’s called “Something Way” or –
BC: Yeah.
BM: It goes right up past Old Main, they could probably see the Tower from their house.
JL: Oh yeah, they lived directly down, actually.
BM: So you went in an electric car from you aunt’s over there –
JL: It was fun!
BM: Oh my goodness, that’s interesting.
JL: It was very sad and I didn’t know it, but Uncle Spence sold Bammie’s [car] (it was the second
one she had too, it was in perfect condition). He sold it to the scrap yard.
BM: Sold the car?
JL: Yes!
BM: Why did he do that?
JL: Huh?
BM: Why did he do that?
JL: Because the War was on and they needed it I guess. And Bammie wasn’t there to drive it. I don’t
think she was. Was she there? I don’t remember when she moved to Salt Lake.
BM: So this would have been the 1940s then when he sold the car?
JL: Yeah.
BM: Hmm.
JL: There’s a statue.
BM: There you go, that’s the sculpture.
JL: Then there’s that.
BM: Oh!
JL: That’s a miniature of the one that’s at Westminster.
BM: Okay.
JL: But it’s life-size; you can sit in a couch beside it. I was trying to think: who is that? I used to go
down to California and stay and visit Em and Noni.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
28
BM: Now who is Noni?
JL: She’s the younger sister and she’s always lived in California, in Berkeley. Just over almost to
Piedmont.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: And Em – after Uncle Lee died – she moved down there and she lived with Noni until Noni
finally kicked her out. Here’s my mother. That’s Mother, and that’s Marriner and that’s Ellen.
BM: Ellen?
JL: Bammie’s next-to-the-youngest.
BM: Oh, okay.
JL: And Merrill.
BM: And you remember them very well?
JL: Oh yeah! Sure, I stayed with them.
BM: Did they ever come over here?
JL: Oh yeah.
BM: And to Bear Lake?
JL: Um-hmm.
BM: So you had company there quite often?
JL: Um-hmm.
BC: And that’s Marriner.
JL: Yes.
BC: Do you remember him at all when he was Secretary of the Treasury?
JL: Sure. I was back in Washington with him. I used to stay with him because I was in barracks and I
didn’t want to be in the barracks very much. So Uncle Marriner would say, “Well come on. You
come stay here if you want to. And just check in and out so I kind of know what and how.” So I
stayed at the [?][Whispering]. It’s kind of posh! It was very posh because the other ones were
over in Arlington. The barracks were just over the Potomac River.
BC: So were you in the Navy, or?
JL: Yeah. I was in the Navy and I loved it! And I loved being in the Navy. And the only reason that I
got out was because I married Fred and I got pregnant purposely. Because I couldn’t get out, I
just couldn’t do it. Then I got pregnant and then I could. No reason I couldn’t have stayed in.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
29
BM: Hmm. When were you – what time period was this when you were back east?
JL: In the Navy before? Who’s that? Who’s that?
BM: Is that a bird?
JL: No, well I guess. I’m looking just over the fence and I think probably it’s the gardeners. They
moved that house.
BC: Oh did they?
JL: Uh-huh.
BM: Beautiful tree.
BC: So did you join the Navy then?
JL: Yeah.
BC: And that was for World War II, or?
JL: When I got to be 21 I joined the Navy. I couldn’t before that, because my dad wouldn’t give his
permission and I had to have my parents [permission]. So finally I got to be 21 and bang! I joined
it.
BM: So how did you tell them that you joined? Your parents?
JL: Very terrified.
[Laughing]
BM: Did you do it face-to-face or did you do it by phone?
JL: No, I did it face-to-face.
BM: Ooh.
JL: Boy Dad! Mother I didn’t care about; but Dad was going to be a case. And he was! He practically
went to Marriner to tell him to get me out of this thing. And Marriner said, “I can’t do that!”
Because he was still Head of the Federal Reserve back in Washington.
BM: Um-hmm.
JL: So there I was off to [?] College and Boot Camp. And then when I got out of Boot Camp I went
to Washington D.C. with a Bureau of Ships and that was great because it was a very closed,
small, what they call a Blue Seal office. Nothing ever went out of that office. Everything was
burned, had to be. We camouflaged all the battle ships and they would send [?] to them. And we
would take them and put them on a paper and scale them down to – and put them on a paper and
then put ships out there to see how the ships . If they looked like ships something, blah, blah, or
whether we would camouflage them so they didn’t look like the ones that they were. It was fun, I
like it. As a matter of fact I liked the Navy. I really did. I had a great time. My father and mother
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
30
had conniptions. But I was 21! And I just did it. I must have been a terror for them to raise and I
think probably I was. Dave wasn’t here, my brother. He was in Australia. No, was he in
Australia? Yeah, I guess he was. In the Army.
BM: So he couldn’t even be here to back you up?
JL: No, no. After I got out of the Navy I met – through the S.O.S. or S.S.?
BC: S.S. I think.
JL: Yeah. And I got some kind of – not because of who I was but because of who I had been in the
skiing department and in the skiing mainly and so on, they wanted this run. And now he or she is
a wave and so on. We had fun. I had special [?] that brought me into the studio and oh! Yeah, had
a good time. I like it but I couldn’t stay in when I got pregnant. Which I probably wouldn’t have
gotten pregnant except that’s the only way and Fred had been transferred to Ohio from D.C. and
so the only way I could get there was to get pregnant and get out of the Navy honorably. I did!
Everything just went swell!
BM: And you came back here?
JL: No, I joined Fred in Dayton, Ohio where Rick was born. And that was something else again. I
thought Dad would have a fit! And I said, now never mind, I did this deliberately and I’ll
probably have another one deliberately. So anyway, I had the baby and stayed in the Navy – or
stayed in until Fred was released – and then we checked out and came here. He’d never been here
before. He’d never been west of the Mississippi I don’t think. Poor old guy.
BC: How did you meet Fred?
JL: In the Army-Navy picnic. Creek Park is where I met him. Although that was tough because he
was an officer and I wasn’t. And that made things a little tough sometimes. But we managed,
much to my father’s chagrin. I think he probably – what would he have me – well I would have
stayed in school I guess. I didn’t ever graduate from the university. Because I was busy in the
Navy and I did love it though. I really did. And it was very good for me to do. And I was in a
wonderful office in Washington, on Constitution Avenue, in the Blue Seal room. And that meant
that upon opening and closing that it was always locked. You couldn’t get in there unless you
were admitted by somebody who was your --. We were only about eight or 10 people in this
particular department. And we would camouflage the ships and put them on a board and look at
them out here and see if we had camouflaged out a stack; to change what kind of class it was in.
We burned everything, had to be burned. Nothing went out of that office.
BM: Do you remember where you were when the War ended?
JL: Sure. I was in Dayton, Ohio.
BM: Had you had your baby then.
JL: Yeah.
BM: Rick was already born?
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
31
JL: Yeah, Rick got himself up and born. An OB/GYN, who apparently was a very outstanding and
very something else – OB/GYN doctor – Kirschbaum, I think that was his name. And boy, he
took such good care of me. He thought this was the biggest joke on the Navy he’d ever heard.
And so Dr. Kirschbaum, who was an outstanding, apparently OB/GYN out of Chicago – he’s the
one that delivered me.
BM: Hmm.
JL: Hardly got there in time. I didn’t have much trouble. Oh, I didn’t. Mother was very busy trying on
hats until Dad I thought was absolutely going to croak her.
BM: She was trying on hats while you were –
JL: In labor.
BM: Oh!
JL: Getting ready to go to the hospital. Because you know, where we lived Patterson Village was a
long way from – well, I guess it was at least a half an hour or 45 minutes away from Wright Field
where you had to go to have this baby. It was funny.
Did you see that? Emma Eccles Jones: Educator, Teacher, Friend. (6 March 1898—29 March
1991.)
BC: They published this for the dedication the other day.
JL: Yeah.
BC: Yeah. Somebody told me about it, but I hadn’t seen one yet.
JL: Well, that’s it. I won’t give it to you, but you can probably go and get one.
BC: I will. We’ll put it in our [Special Collections]. I work in the library, so we’ll put it in our [library
at USU.]
JL: Absolutely. I think Rick wrote a lot of it.
BM: Well, we’re just about at the end of our tape. So is there anything else that you would like to add?
JL: No. What do you want to add?
BM: Well.
JL: Or ask? If I can fulfill –
BM: Well you know one question that we were really interested in, that you talked a little bit about in
terms of so many changes going on at Bear Lake. And Bear Lake and Logan Canyon – you
mentioned the road and the bridges. Are there any other significant changes or policies that you
can think of that impacted the lake or the canyon while you were going over there?
JL: Well.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
32
BM: Or even events. Like the Depression, or civil rights, or anything like that?
JL: I went – where was it? You know, it’s about that road that goes up, up, up and comes to where
you turn off to go – what is that road called? The part of it?
BM: Is it the winding part of the road?
JL: No. It’s the one that goes up from the river, over the bridge – they had to redo the bridge like
completely.
[Tape 2 of 2: B]
Yeah. Gee that was a fun one. You know when you go at the top there on that Denny’s dugway
and then turn to get out, you used to go out and around on that point. You can probably still see
the road. And mother was driving this 7 passenger Buick you know it’s just a big hunk of
machinery. That was the climb. And you know, you didn’t just sort of flip up there like you do
now. It was fun though.
Mother was quite adventuresome. I don’t know, I guess she went up to the store and tell Joan she
was there. You didn’t go over Evanston because from Evanston over was dirt road. All through
Woodruff, Randolph up the canyon, it was all dirt.
BM: And you said you came then in most recent years, you came up through Evanston. Where you
going through Woodruff and Randolph at Deseret Ranch?
JL: Yes.
BM: Was that a place that you were in?
JL: Yeah we didn’t go into it. No, we stayed on the road that went past the horse racing and we went
up there and then we just zoomed and kept going until we got to Big Junction. From there you
can go to Jackson Hole or Bear Lake.
BM: Is that Sage Creek Junction?
JL: Yeah, it’s Sage Creek Junction. And yeah, it’s longer but well I just haven’t driven in Logan
forever. I was asking somebody the other day how it was. Could I get through the canyon or
couldn��t I? Cause I was thinking about going up that way.
BC: I think it’s pretty good right now. I don’t think there’s much going on now. So you better do it
this year because they might start all over again. [Meaning road construction.]
JL: Yeah it I otta go. Why didn’t they leave it alone?!
BM: Cause there’s lots of skiers and lots of folks going up and down. And they are in a hurry.
JL: Well, do you think that they are to get up skiing to the meadows there, is it a lot faster now with
the road?
BM: It is. It’s a lot faster. You know 10 years I’ve been here, but it is a lot faster from what people tell
me. It’s still a beautiful ride.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
33
JL: I know. It is. That’s the prettiest. The other one is just interesting kind of. Getting up, over and
dropping down.
BM: But it gets wicked in the wintertime with the weather.
JL: Well, yes it is. I guess it’s a hard road to maintain. They only open it up to the ski area. I don’t
think they open it up and over the top and down do they?
BM: They do keep it open now.
JL: Do they?!
BM: So you remember a time when the road used to just be opened to the top?
JL: Yeah.
BM: Hmmm. And did they gate it?
JL: No… they didn’t gate it. I don’t know. You just knew it wasn’t plowed. That’s how you knew.
You came to a grinding halt.
BM: And the last place you could get to was what? Beaver Mountain?
JL: Mm Hmmm. Yeah.
BM: That’s a truck route now, Janet, with a lot of trucks that go through there pretty much year round.
JL: What? Bear Lake?
BM: Yeah.
JL: Oh. Over the new road?
BM: Yeah.
JL: Oh I’m sure. There was a great increase even before they did this new deal as it started down.
What was it called? Denny’s dugway. I wonder if it’s… is it significantly better?
BM: They’ve taken some of the corners, they windy parts out.
BC: Probably the big thing was they’ve built in a lot of passing lanes, so that you know, if you had a
recreational vehicle that was going slower, they wouldn’t back it up as much. So now you can get
around some of the slower vehicles. It probably saves you 15 minutes.
JL: Honestly, who don’t go that way, go the way that’s not pretty just go to Montpelier [Idaho]; that’s
where people want to go I guess. Course Montpelier is a train …
BC: Train town.
JL: And there’s nothing in St. Charles. And there’s nothing in Paris really. And I don’t know what
they could build there. Or what they would have there.
Land
Use
Management
Oral
History
Project:
Janet
Quinney
Lawson
Page
34
BM: I think mostly the change now is just homes that are going in. Summer homes and some are
winter ski homes. But mostly just homes because some the ranches that were there are much
smaller or gone. But more, more homes.
JL: Between Montpelier and Lake Town?
BM: Between Paris, St. Charles, and then down I don’t know what the next town would be, but along
that side. Little by little…
JL: They are encroaching on my property and I don’t like it.
BM: Well, Janet, thank you so much for chatting with us this afternoon.
JL: Oh sure! I hope I’ve done something good. Well, if it isn’t right, or you need more whatever, I
will be aboard.
BM: Alright. Well, thank you very much for having us today. We appreciate it.
JL: I hoping I could get you something?
BM: You know I might take a glass of water now. Thank you.
JL: Um hum.